


I Will Always Find You

by Music_Chick



Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02, Digimon Adventure tri.
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Adults, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Ensemble Cast, F/M, Metafiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:41:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 41,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21874588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Music_Chick/pseuds/Music_Chick
Summary: During their last moments together of a brutal battle, Tai confesses his feelings to Sora. Soon after, they are transported to another world with no memories of the past. The Digidestined are strangers to each other abiding by the roles they were given. The red string of fate, however, can't be destroyed. After all, pinky promises were always meant to be kept.
Relationships: Izumi Koushirou | Izzy Izumi/Tachikawa Mimi, Takaishi Takeru | T.K. Takaishi/Yagami Hikari | Kari Kamiya, Takenouchi Sora/Yagami Taichi | Tai Kamiya
Kudos: 11





	1. Looks Like a Glitch

**Author's Note:**

> In Chapter 7, there is an assumption that a character raped another, but it's quickly told after that this did not happen. This is why I chose not to mark that warning, and placed the explanation here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was transferred over from my FFN page, which was posted in 2017. I'm using AO3 as a backup.

Eight pairs of feet pounded the desert ground in a mad panic, gasping for air while their limbs threatened to give out on them. The Digidestined, who had all reached adulthood, raced for their lives towards the cave facing them. Everyone had been running as fast as they could for almost four miles causing their mad dash to quickly dwindled to a light jog. The desert heat was zapping everyone's energy, and some could feel leg cramps about to set in.

Each one either tightly clutched their respective Digimon partners or were placed in a pocket due to them all devolving back to their baby forms, weak after a devastating and brutal battle. Several of their Digimon partners were flickering as if they would die in their arms any second.

The cave that was within eyesight was their only hope left in escaping. Reaching it felt nearly impossible as the new reigning terror of the digital world, Chicanemon, a mega level Digimon who was choosing to hide in the middle of the billowing mass of desert sand and wind he was controlling, inched closer to them as it towered over their heads like a tidal wave threatening to engulf each one.

It felt as if the Digimon was teasing them, holding back its true power until boredom set in. They all would have taken the chance to jump in that swirling mess of sand and wind when the battle was occurring minutes before, serving as a distraction so their Digimon could recover and continue to fight, but look what happened to the new guy when this all started:

Dead in an instant.

Tai looked back, still racing forward, willing his bone-weary legs to keep going. His voice was straining for strength as he encouraged his friends. "We're almost there, everyone! Stick together! Izzy! Are you sure it'll work?"

Izzy, exhaustion setting in, was slowing down. "There's a sixty-five percent probability rate of success! Tai, are you sure you want to take this risk!"

"Sixty-five!" Matt growled in panic wiping his brow with the back of his hand. "That's not good enough!"

"Are you kidding me!" Joe cried, his breathing was becoming labored by the second. "I knew this was a bad idea!"

"My legs are getting tired!" Mimi whined trying to keep up.

"It's gonna have to be enough!" Tai encouraged. "Hang in there, guys! Just a little mor-"

 _"Mimi!"_ Izzy screamed as he watched his wife collapse in fatigue.

The tidal wave slowed to a crawl as if he was enjoying torturing his soon-to-be victim's last moments of life. Everyone stopped running away and turned back towards Izzy and Mimi, wheezing in the hot, dry air, shouting obscenities to the evil Digimon. Izzy tried to help Mimi up, but it was no use. Her body was depleted of energy and shut down.

Joe reached them first picking up her legs and ordered to Izzy, "I got her legs! Get her arms! Come on!"

Chicanemon remained hidden in the billowing tidal wave of desert sand and wind as he boomed a deep, menacing laugh that echoed in the heavens. "My first victims! Welcome to my nightmare!"

"Not on our watch!" TK shouted back as he reached Mimi next, supporting her middle back. "Move it, guys!"

The three men ignored their wobbling arms and legs that were begging for a rest and slowly inched forward towards the cave.

Yuramon, trying to hang on inside Mimi's shirt pocket, her body flickering and becoming transparent, let out a weak, "Mimi..."

Hearing Yuramon, Mimi opened her eyes to observe her surroundings. Sudden clarity hit her: They weren't going to make it. Chicanemon was inches away, but teasing them until he was ready to end it all. Allowing them to think they could reach the cave was another mind game, out of countless others, he was playing. They were chasing another dead end, just like all the other plans before.

Chicanemon, the Digimon master of illusions and memory loss, was going to win. Out of all their adventures together here, this was how she was going to die. This gave her the strength to do the last thing she believed could make a difference. It was always better to go out in a fight than giving in.

Reaching for her digivice in her pocket, she aimed it at the tidal wave where Chicanemon hid praying that her plan would work. "You big jerk! You can kill me, but I'm bringing you down with me!"

"Don't say that!" Izzy reprimanded her, tears streaming down, regardless of knowing what she said was true. "We've always won before."

She smiled at her husband saying her goodbye. "I love you too."

Moments before Izzy, Mimi, Joe, and TK were swallowed in the tidal wave, a light shot out of Mimi's digivice encircling her body in a protective case. This wave of energy shot forth to the digivices of Izzy, Joe, and TK giving them the energy to do the same. A second light shot forth straight down the middle of the tidal wave causing Chicanemon to howl in pain. Right as Tai, Kari, Matt, and Sora were within arm's reach they watched their friends become swallowed into darkness. They all stopped dead in their tracks in disbelief.

Chicanemon came to a complete halt to recover his strength and to observed what the Digidestined would do. How he was enjoying watching the remaining four Digidestined suffer not knowing their friend's fates!

 _"No! TK!"_ Matt screamed, petrified at what he just witnessed. It couldn't be! His brother couldn't be dead! His knees buckled hitting the sand, his lungs burning as he continued to gasp for air. The sensation to throw up was growing until he gave into it.

Punimon, flickering in Matt's side pant pocket, spoke with fatigue. "The digivice protected them, Matt. He's still alive. This has got to be another illusion."

Sora stared at the tidal wave in disbelief. "It has to be...Right?"

Kari clung to her older brother's left sleeve sobbing as she hugged YukimiBotamon tight. Her fiancé, TK, may or may not be dead. She could feel her knees wanting to give out as well.

An illusion, huh? That's all Matt needed to hear. "You sick bastard." The words followed out in a deep, low growl giving him the energy to stand once more. He wiped his mouth on his shirt. A light shot out from his digivice and encircled his body. "Nobody hurts my brother, or my friends, and lives to tell the tale!"

Tai swiftly took hold of Matt's arms. "Hold on! I know TK is in there, but what if it really is an illusion-"

"Hypocrite!" Matt shoved him away. "You'd do the same if Kari was in there!"

"I'm not being a hypocrite!" Tai argued with urgency pointing to the cave. "Izzy said there's a chance to get rid of Chicanemon once and for all hidden in that cave. They would have wanted us to keep fighting! So, let's do them proud and keep fighting!"

Matt swallowed back his tears and slowly faced Chicanemon. He answered his best friend, "Then go fight for us because I can't leave my little brother."

Sora ran to stand in front of Matt. She held his shoulders pleading with him. "Matt, I can understand where you're coming from, but we need you…"

Matt cut her off by tenderly hooking his hands to the side of her cheeks and gingerly kissed her forehead. He ever so gently moved the strands of hair from her eyes with a few fingers. Everything he ever wanted to say to her, but never found the chance to conjure in the open, was told through his lingering kiss and forlorn expression. Sora blushed as she realized what he was trying to communicate.

As the light encircling Matt became brighter, he rushed towards the tidal wave and jumped in shouting his last words to his friends, _"Go now!"_

 _"Maaaatt!"_ Tai, Sora, and Kari wailed with all their might.

Sora began to cry not able to handle watching any more of her friends dying - or not dying if it was an illusion.

Kari sunk to her knees allowing the continuous menacing laugh echo in her ears. YukimiBotamon jumped into her shirt pocket and burrowed to the bottom.

Tai wanted to lay down and quit. He had let his team down. Botamon was severely injured, flickering and fading quickly as he stayed hidden in his pants pocket. Illusion, or not, he had two team members left, his sister and his best friend, whom he always loved, and he'd be damned if he was going to let Chicanemon take them away. He eyed the distance to the cave; less than a quarter of a mile away. They could make it!

"Get up! Get up right now!" He ordered them, not as brother and best friend, but as their leader. "We have a job to do. Get going!"

Sora looked to Tai coughing from some of the dust that flew her mouth. She saw the fear in his eyes and hoped that Izzy was right. She had to trust they were right. She always did. Fully recovered, the tidal wave began to slowly inch forward again taunting them.

Tai yanked on Kari's arm urging her to get up. "I said let's go, Kari!"

Sora held Kari's other arm helping her up. The three began their run towards the cave resuming their original mission while Kari continued to mourn her fiancé.

Tai's heart broke. His sister was recently engaged after Tai gave TK his blessing. He always saw TK as his own brother and knew they'd be happy together. He promised himself when this was all over he'd do something nice for them, like book them a vacation. Something. Hell, he'd book all of his friends a vacation. He'd even tell Sora that he was in love with her…That is, if they were still alive.

Kari collapsed as her wearied leg muscles gave way from leg cramps and howled in pain. Tai and Sora looked back to see Kari struggling to her feet calling out to Tai for help. They rushed back to Kari. Before they could rescue her, Chicanemon swiftly used a vortex of wind to suck Kari into his tidal wave as she screamed for her brother - but not before a light burst out from her own digivice engulfing her head to toe.

 _"Kariiii!"_ Tai rushed towards her, a futile attempt to rescue her. _"You bastard monster! Give me back my sister!"_

"Tai!" Sora stood in between the tidal wave and her best friend pushing against his chest to stop him and urged him to continue the mission. "She's not dead! We have to believe that and keep going!"

"Who said she wasn't dead?" boomed Chicanemon mocking them. "She tasted delicious like the others."

Tai's digivice activated and a light encircled him. Sora's eyes widened in fear. She couldn't lose him. Not Tai of all people.

"Hey!" She smacked Tai on his left shoulder attempting to take the lead. With authority dripping from every syllable she commended, "We're getting them back, but I can't do this without you. Pull yourself together! The cave is right there!" She pointed behind her.

Problem was, it wasn't there anymore.

Sora and Tai gasped in dismay. This couldn't be happening. How much of everything was an illusion? At this point, they couldn't trust anything they saw in the digital world; not with this corrupted Digimon on the loose. This time for sure, the two remaining Digidestined knew that the cave had to be there. It was probably even closer than what they were seeing before. Tai stopped glowing. He held Sora's hand and they both ran the rest of the way into the direction where the cave was supposed to be while Chicanemon threw insults their way.

"Do not let go of my hand," ordered Tai. "This is the only way to make sure he doesn't trick us. Got it?"

Sora squeezed his hand agreeing. "Hold your digivice up. It may help us find the cave!"

Of course! Why didn't he think of that? Tai followed Sora imagining the power he and Sora had residing in them would flow through their digivices and direct them the right way. Right after this was done, their digivices began to glow and the cave began to flicker before their eyes. There it was! Just like he thought, it was smack in front of them!

"Hurry, Sor! We're running out of time!"

"It looks like it's another glitch with the way it's flickering. Are you sure this is real?" Sora asked as they rushed inside the cave while it still flickered.

"Has to be," he followed behind. "Our digivices never failed us- _Watch out!_ "

Tai stood in front of Sora protectively with one arm stretched out to the side blocking Sora while the other held his digivice out. Botamon and Nyokimon had jumped in front of their partners doing their best to protect them throwing their weak attacks to bide some time.

A vortex swarmed inside the cave ready to swallow everyone until Tai's digivice glowed and a light encircled him while another shot out straight aiming to Chicanemon striking through the tidal wave. Chicanemon yelled in pain. Sora raised hers joining Tai with the same outcome.

Chicanemon roared in fury, the tidal wave inching back. With the last ounce of strength, the evil Digimon fought the pain stretching his hands out of the tidal wave of sand and wind snatching both Botamon and Nyokimon and attempted to rush further in the cave to swallow the remaining Digidestined.

Tai pushed Sora to the ground laying on top of her, his last ditch effort to protect her, as they both screamed in fear. This was it. Their last moments together. This was how it was all going to end. He failed his friends. He failed his sister. He failed Sora. He never got to tell Sora he loved her...

Wait. Why was it quiet?

Tai looked down to Sora's eyes confused. She was glowing, just like him. They both looked towards the entrance of the cave and saw the hot desert sun shining as a tumbleweed rolled by. The cave wasn't flickering anymore. Their digivices, that was also emitting a stream of light towards the entrance of the cave, stopped shining and they were no longer encircled in the light. Where did Chicanemon go? They couldn't have won. They needed that crystal. Chicanemon must've been severely wounded.

* * *

Tai rolled off of Sora onto his back depleted of all energy, drinking in deep, quick breaths. He knew he had to get up and continue with the plan, but he needed a few minutes to take everything in and gather his strength back. Botamon was gone. So was Nyokimon. He felt Sora taking hold of his left hand as she too, depleted of all energy, laid on her back trying to catch her breath while mourning losing Nyokimon. Maybe it was an illusion. Maybe it wasn't. If it was, why weren't their friends and Digimon friends here when Chicanemon was hurt?

"Tai," she cried. "Oh, Tai..."

"We...We have to get up. We owe it to Nyokimon, Botamon, Matt, Izzy - everyone!" Tai whispered in a raspy voice, more to himself than Sora. "Get up, Sora."

"I'm trying," she sobbed, but none of her muscles were listening to her will to survive.

Tai turned his head to Sora, his precious Sora, forcing himself to remember every facial expression she ever made: The way she'd purse her lips in almost anticipation of what the other would say; the way she'd squint her eyes whenever something personal was discussed; her sweet smile whenever it was the just the two of them sitting under their tree, their spot where they always had serious conversations about life, at night. This was his strength to get up. Sora was his strength.

He slowly rolled to his belly while loudly moaning his aches and pains. Taking a deep breath in, and with shaky arms and legs that felt like they were on fire, he pushed himself to his knees. Slowly, he crawled forward down the cave's path. He didn't have the energy to walk anymore.

The cave was shallow, not needing to crawl very far and he thanked the gods above for that. There laid the white crystal on a pedestal that stood three foot tall emitting a low, twinkling melody. Etched on all areas of the crystal were the symbols of everyone's crests. Their saving grace laid safely in Tai's palms. This would be what would defeat Chicanemon and reset its DNA.

Tai crawled back to Sora tucking the crystal in his pocket next to his digivice. When he reached her again she was sitting up with her back resting against the jagged cave wall. Her breathing was slowing. He sat next to her in the same way, showed her the crystal while still trying to slow his breathing, and placed it back in his pocket. Everything was going to be okay. He had to keep telling himself that.

Relieved, Sora lightly patted his hand. "Everything's gonna be okay, Tai. We found it."

"Sora," Tai whined licking his lips, "I need a vacation."

She laughed. "Well, shit, I'll join you!"

His lopsided grin showed. He turned to look at her, his head resting on the hard cave wall. "Promise? I'll take you anywhere you want."

She joked to see his reaction. "Always wanted to go to New Zealand."

Tai's facial expression faltered. "Uhhh, um, how about something more local?"

She chuckled guessing correctly on what he'd say. "Stupid Tai. Did you really believe me?"

Gripping her hand that was still laying on top of his, he scooted closer. He couldn't explain it, but he suddenly had this wave of urgency flow through him needing to tell her everything. What if they died saving the world and she never knew? Unsure if everyone else was still alive, or not, even his sister, he had to tell her. It wasn't the most romantic of places, but...

"What are you thinking, Tai?" She pursed her lips. "We have to believe-"

"I have to tell you something," he cut her off. "I-I don't know how much time we have left, or if we'll make it out of here alive. I wanted to, uh..." He blushed. This was hard! He shook his head trying to gather his composure. If Matt was able to convey how he felt before he left, then so could he.

"Sor, I, um..." His voice wavered.

She squinted her brows and leaned forward. "What's the matter?"

He bit his bottom lip fighting his insides with the urgency he felt quickly dwindling. She had to of known, right? He adjusted how he sat so he could grab her in a tight hug. Sora let out a quick "Oh!" being caught off guard and madly blushed.

Fighting his nerves he let out a deep breath and revealed his heart. "I know you're gonna hate me for saying this here and now of all times, but I'm in love with you, Sor. I've always been in love with you. I wish this could have been a more romantic place, but what's a little Digimon battle to put things into perspective?"

Surprised, Sora gently pushed Tai away enough to look up into his eyes. She couldn't believe his timing! "Now? You say this now? Out of all the countless times-"

He sighed lowering his head. That wasn't what he was hoping to hear. "It always seemed like you were into Matt. Everyone figured that time at Christmas that you and he were on a date at the concert before we were attacked. I sorta figured you two were kinda digging each other since then. Lately, it's like you and Matt aren't going out anymore, but how can anyone know if you're always so secretive? Still, after that, there were times I couldn't figure out if you liked me, or if I was just seeing what I wanted to see. Can you help me out here?"

Sora groaned and playfully scratched both sides of his head with her fingertips. "We're twenty-one years old. How long were you planning to wait before I gave up on waiting for you, Tai? You complain about me being secretive, but so are you. I can count a handful of times, maybe less, of when you were kinda obvious yourself."

Fear ran through his veins. Forcing his head to lift so he could observe her facial expression, he wasn't sure what to expect to see. Nervously, he scratched the back of his neck asking, " _Did_ you give up on me? Why didn't you say something?"

She sighed shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders. "You're confusing, Tai. One minute you're flirting with me, then I'm your best friend, and then, you're totally aloof to what I'm really trying to tell you. So, I guess I did give up..."

She turned her head to her right, looking at where two of the jagged cave walls met. "Matt and I went on a few dates back in high school, but it didn't go further than that because you'd either say or do something to make me hope and wonder if you'd finally say something to me. He _did_ ask me out on a date recently though, and I told him I'd think about it. I said I'd get back to him because, um, well, I couldn't help but still hope..." She locked eyes with Tai.

A quick, happy sigh flowed from Tai's lips in relief and joy. Sitting on his knees, he tenderly cupped her face, she did the same to his, as he softly rested his forehead on hers and closed his eyes. He lovingly nuzzled the tip of his nose with hers causing her to giggle, and purposely making her yearn for his lips. Tilting his head slightly to the right, after all these years they've known the other, he brushed his lips against hers making her shiver until he fully pressed his lips to hers. After what felt like an eternity, they parted, resting their foreheads together again not wanted to leave the other's touch. She happily sighed.

He caressed her left cheek. "You always wanted to visit the countryside, right? When we get out of this, I'll take you there. I pinky swear." He held up his left pinky grinning that well-known lopsided grin.

She snorted in laughter hooking her pinky with his. When they were teens, they used to always hold the other responsible when they sealed a deal this way. That's was one of the things she loved about Tai. Not only was he always there for her, but he always put others' needs before his. She knew he'd rather go to a hot spring, instead of the countryside. When this was over, if this was ever over, she'd tell him that.

The wind picked up in an instant. From afar off, the desert sand swirled in the air towering the height of the cave and a tidal wave was forming.

The two Digidestined looked to each other with a renewed strength, nodded in agreement, and stood to their aching feet taking their digivices and crystal out into the air. As the light from their digivices beamed around them, while at the same time also shooting straight through the tidal wave, they walked to the entrance of the cave. The crystal didn't work.

Chicanemon let out a blood-curdling scream in pain. A vortex was formed and tried to suck Tai and Sora in. The pair ran as fast as they could to the back of the cave while the light surrounding them grew brighter. In their last ditch effort, cursing at the crystal to work, Tai held both digivice and crystal in one hand again towards the vortex that was infiltrating the cave. Sora held his free hand and lifted her digivice as well. The lights from their digivices attacked once again, but the crystal didn't activate. Instead, it glowed and was absorbed into his digivice.

"What the hell!" Tai screamed. "NO, NO NO! Work, dammit! _Work!_ That wasn't supposed to happen!"

"It's...It's okay," she tried to comfort him even though she, herself, was admitting defeat.

"Sor!" He lifted his pinky and hooked his with hers. They had seconds left before their unknown fates awaited them. "Whatever happens, I'll find you!" He smashed his lips to hers in a panic seeing it race closer. "I will always find you! Do you trust me?"

Tears rolled down both of their cheeks as she replied, "I trust you!"

They held each other tight as they were overshadowed with sand and wind.

* * *

"Hi! This is the Taichi Yagami show! I'm Taichi and today...huh?"

Twenty-one year old Taichi stood outside on his front lawn wearing his high school soccer uniform bouncing the soccer ball on his knees as the video camera and tripod he recently bought stood in front of him recording. He wanted to start a vlog on a worldwide popular vlog site. His vlog would be about how to train harder in soccer. That would be hard to do, though, if his equipment kept literally flickering.

Taichi growled smacking the camera, but the flickering became worse to include the tripod. _"Come on, man!_ "

The next door neighbor opened a window and stuck his head out to shout at him in annoyance, "Taichi, it's glitching. You know that's normal! Trees glitch. Houses glitch. People glitch. It's just another glitch. You know this! Leave your camera alone, or you'll break it!"

Taichi scrunched his brows and wasn't ashamed that his neighbor heard him sigh in frustration throwing his hands in the air. There goes his weirdo neighbor, Koushiro, with that crazy talk again. He'd rather humor the nut than have another half hour long debate about being in an alternate universe, things called digi-something or another, fighting a war, and all that sort. An uneasy, forced grin grew and he placed his hands on his hips. "Glitching is normal, huh, Koushiro?"

"For the last time! I'm Izzy, not Koushiro! You're Tai, not Taichi!" he rested his forehead on his right hand sighing. "This all feels normal to you because you're not listening to me about Chicane-"

Izzy, himself, glitched, fading in and out of reality. His body returned to normal. When he spoke again it was as if he had no recollection of what he was just saying. The rest of his reply was answered in an aggravated tone. "Yes! Not like you haven't witnessed it your whole life. It's just another glitch! Now, if you'd stop making so much noise outside I could possibly get my work done!" and slammed the window closed.

Taichi felt his body glitch, the same as Koushiro. Normal. Of course, it was normal. He watched it happen all his life...Right? Yes, it was coming back to him. Okay, he could get used to this. He looked back to his camera to restart his vlog. It wasn't glitching anymore.


	2. 'Round and 'Round the Mulberry Bush

In a flash, Taichi shot up in his bed drenched in a cold sweat, his breathing was rapid and heavy, as he clutched his chest with one hand. His eyes darted to every corner of his dark bedroom as his brain tried to connect the dots that he was safe at home. Speaking in a soft, raspy voice, he called out objects laying in his room as he saw them. It was a calming technique that helped him know what he saw was real:

_"Desk…nightstand…blanket…closet…socks…camera…"_

It was the fifth time this week that he had the same nightmare: There was a war. A monster was chasing him and his friends. One by one they were killed and he was powerless to stop it all. There was a woman next to him, but he couldn't make out what she was trying to say or what she looked like. Next thing he knew, his body was ripped in half-

_"Brush…dresser…computer…fan…"_

Taichi let out a slow, deep breath wiping his brow as his nerves slowly calmed. He looked at the digital clock that laid on his nightstand to see it read six forty-two in the morning. A shower. He needed a shower and hot green tea. The lack of sleep was starting to wear on his energy. Standing to his feet, he chose a soccer uniform from the closet and headed off to wash the menacing images from his pores.

* * *

"Yo! Got any metal you don't want?"

"Whaaat?" Taichi dragged his question out, leaning his head to one side, and cocked a brow upward.

Just as his tea was poured with the anticipation of sitting on his front porch to enjoy the early morning sunshine, here comes this blonde hair, blue-eyed guy pounding on his front door at seven-thirty in the morning asking for scrap metal. Streaks of grease were littered on the stranger's cheeks, forehead, and his tattered blue overalls. This didn't look shady at all.

Taichi yawned and then sipped his tea. "What's your name again?"

"Yamato," he answered pointing to his name patch that was sowed to his shirt near his left breast and shifted the black garbage bag filled with metal that rested over his right shoulder.

"Wish I could help, dude, but I don't have any metal parts to spare."

"It's cool," Yamato sighed in defeat. "Know anyone that would?"

Taking another sip, Taichi looked to his left scanning the neighborhood street and then right. He lived in a well-kept residential area and couldn't fathom who would stockpile metal. He took a step back surprised to see Koushiro next door standing on the porch with furrowed brows and crossed arms. Geez, man. Any little noise and his crazy neighbor made sure to make his life hell.

Yamato glanced over to the same direction and took a small jump back. If he didn't know better it looked like there were deep, dark, black circles set under the neighbor's eyes. A man without sleep wasn't one to interact with. "Um, maybe I should–"

"Nah, it's all good!" Taichi chuckled. "He's harmless. Watch this. Morning, neighbor!" He greeted with a wave. The 'kill them with kindness' approach seemed best in this situation. It's not that he wanted to tease Koushiro. He didn't. His gut was saying his neighbor had another all-nighter with work and no matter what he'd say, it would be taken the wrong way. Still, it wouldn't hurt to attempt _some_ kind of conversation with him…be it crazy neighbor, or not. "Another long night writing code?"

_"I'M-WOR-KING!"_ Koushiro threw his hands in the air. "How hard is it to shut up! Seriously!"

Taichi smiled. "Aw, I'm doing great this morning. Thanks for asking!" He turned back to Yamato sipping his tea nonchalantly. "See? Harmless."

Koushiro huffed in irritation and headed back to his front door.

Before he could enter, Yamato sent a question his way. "Yo, by the way, any metal you can spare? Maybe an old computer?"

Rage filled Koushiro's eyes. He slowly turned and addressed Yamato in a low voice. "How _dare_ you think I'd get rid of _any_ computer in my possession." He then stormed into his home slamming the door shut.

Yamato blinked, confused to Koushiro's reaction while Taichi sipped his tea leaning against the front door frame unfazed. Readjusting the garbage of metal over his shoulder, Yamato grumbled to the floor, "Geez, man. Someone needs to get him laid."

Taichi nodded. "Tell me about it. Say, whatcha gonna do with all that metal anyhow?"

Yamato flashed a debonair smile. "Build a space rocket."

"Uh-huh…"

_A space rocket? Really? Who does that?_

When he noticed Yamato's smile begin to falter, Taichi quickly grinned rubbing the back of his neck. "That's great! Someone has to explore space, right?"

A displeased grunt was released as Yamato walked down the front porch steps. "More like the moon, or Mars…"

"Alright, man," Taichi took another sip and waved goodbye ignoring his visitor's side comment. "I hope you find all the metal you need," and entered his home closing the door.

* * *

Pouring another cup of hot green tea, Taichi settled for sitting at his kitchen table. Hot showers in the morning usually worked in helping to calm him from the recurring nightmare, but this time he couldn't shake it. He could still play it back in his mind as vividly as ever. His stomach became queasy. He usually liked to have a huge breakfast before starting his daily vlog, but not today. Something was off. Taichi could always count on his gut feelings and this time it was saying he needed to remember something. Perhaps the nightmares were serving for a distorted way of his subconscious trying to tell him something else?

Before he could take a sip as he strived to analyze the dream, another knock came at the front door.

_Not cool! Not cool at all!_

He groaned, the kitchen chair scraping against the floor, as he stood grumbling to himself about needing five minutes to himself.

* * *

"Now, let's talk about your drink, Sir."

"Huh?" Taichi looked at his tea confused.

"It's about your drink, Sir," the saleswoman insisted with a sweet smile.

"What about it?" He asked, squinting his eyes and cautiously taking a sip.

"It can't be as good as _Mimi's Famous Hot Chocolate_! Here! Have some!" The saleswoman produced a thermos from her bulky shoulder bag and unscrewed the top.

"Lady, I think I'm good with my tea," he politely declined not realizing he was protectively clutching his tea to his chest.

"Nonsense! Taste it! One taste and you'll definitely want to hire me as your home chef!" She insisted offering it to him.

"Listen. Chef Mimi, is it?" Chef Mimi eagerly nodded. Taichi sheepishly grinned feeling uncomfortable turning her away. "I really have no need for a personal home chef. I cook pretty well for myself."

Chef Mimi clicked her tongue out of annoyance, took a step forward and again offered the hot chocolate. "Oh, that's silly talk! Everyone needs help every once in a while. Taste it!"

"No, really! I'm good!"

"Open wide!"

"Lady!"

_"Would you open your mouth!"_

_"Oh my God, Lady! Get off my porch!"_

_"What's the commotion about this time!"_ boomed Koushiro stomping out of his front door again. "Taichi, I've had enough of your…" The minute Koushiro's eyes laid on Chef Mimi's, his expression softened. Blushing, he stammered his next sentence, "Oh, uh, hel-hello there, ma'am."

Chef Mimi frowned. "Well, good morning to you too." She turned to Taichi. "Is that how he usually acts?"

Though it was tempting to crack a joke about Koushiro, Taichi thought of a brilliant idea that would make everyone happy and get this lady off his property. "Tell you what: Give me those cookies that you showed me earlier for free and I'll convince Koushiro that he needs you."

She huffed, "I can do my own convincing, thank you." Then again, enlisting Taichi's help wouldn't be a bad idea. "…Think it'll work?" This was the fourth neighborhood she visited this week with no luck in finding employment. If this man could help change the tide she would be eternally grateful.

Koushiro rubbed the back of his neck nervously watching the two whisper. "I-I didn't mean to yell. Honest!"

Chef Mimi glanced back at Koushiro eyeing him up and down. He looked like a hot mess: Clothing was wrinkled, there were dark, deep-set circles under his eyes, and his hair looked to be tattered and greasy. Either this guy didn't bother to take good care of himself, or he was a workaholic. Taichi may be right about this guy after all!

She fumbled through her bulky shoulder bag, produced a plastic baggie of fresh, homemade chocolate chip cookies and handed them to Taichi. "Deal!"

Taichi grinned putting the cookies in his pocket and addressed his neighbor. "Morning again, neighbor! My friend here, uh…" He looked to Chef Mimi trying to remember her name.

"Chef Mimi!" She waved to Koushiro with the biggest smile and then fluffed her hair to look presentable.

"Chef Mimi! Yes!" Taichi followed through. "My friend, Chef Mimi, here, was looking to see if I knew anyone that was willing to hire a personal chef. You're constantly working," he pointed towards Koushiro, "and hardly ever leave your house. I think this would be a well-fit marriage."

"What?" Koushiro responded flustered and his cheeks grew redder by the second. "I don't think so. As long as I have oolong tea nearby–"

She gasped taken aback from his lack of nutritional diet. She came to the conclusion that he was a workaholic in dire need of structure. "Oooh, no, sir! Not on my watch!" She stormed over to Koushiro's porch and pushed him inside. "You need my help, you poor thing! I'll take good care of you!"

"Wait a minute!" He tried to protest, but was pushed inside and the front door slammed shut.

Taichi sipped his tea with a chuckle. It was totally worth whatever payback he'd get. To be frank, sometimes he was concerned about his neighbor not having a life and constantly working day and night. Maybe this Chef Mimi lady would be good for him. If anything, hopefully, he'll be less grumpy with a full stomach.

* * *

"Hey, guys! It's your main man, Taichi Yagami! For today's topic, we're gonna talk about cleats." Taichi stood in his front yard fully dressed in his soccer uniform holding a spare pair of cleats in the air as his video camera, that stood several feet away, recorded his vlog. "Now, the thing you want to keep in mind when choosing a pair, is that a tighter fit is generally recommended because here's the thing: Soccer shoes are usually constructed of very thin material. Thin material, plus a tighter fit, will ensure optimal…Whoa…"

Taichi's heart stopped beating. His peripheral vision caught a woman leaving the house directly across the street from his property. That house had been empty for years. Since when did someone move in? He couldn't place where he saw her before, but it felt as if he once knew her. Maybe from school? It's possible. He tried thinking of all the friends he knew growing up, but their faces were blurred. She looked so familiar.

And beautiful.

A cherry blossom tree flickered into existence on the front yard where the lady stood. It looked like she carried a book with her. She made herself comfortable laying a blanket on the floor and curled up against the tree resting her back to its trunk facing her house.

Taichi was smitten at first sight. He had to of known her from somewhere. One thing he always did was trust his gut feelings.

"Sora…" Her name flowed through his lips as if he'd always known her. His heart thumped rapidly against his chest. "Sora?" he said it again confused as to why the name and this woman felt so familiar.

He dropped the soccer cleats to the ground and turned the camera off. Studying this woman that was supposedly named 'Sora', a rush of memories attacked his mind:

_I've known Sora all my life! We grew up together in Highton View Terrance – No! Odaiba! Maybe we knew each other in both towns?_

He took a step forward gasping.

_She was my best friend!_

He took another step forward.

_No! She once was my best friend. Now we're…_

_"Sora!"_ Tai cried rushing to Sora. _"Sora! It's me!"_

Wide-eyed, Sora scrambled to her feet clutching the book to her chest, frightened of this stranger rushing towards her. "Come any closer and I'll knock you senseless!"

Tai came to a halt taken aback of Sora not recognizing him. He was steps away from her and all he wanted to do was to squeeze his girlfriend tight and kiss her, tell her that they were living in a real-life nightmare created by Chicanemon and needed to break free of it somehow. Wait. That meant, he looked towards Koush – _No!_ Izzy's 'house'. They weren't dead! None of them were!

"Shoo!" Sora was smacking Tai with her book. "Get off my property before I call the police!"

"Ack! Sora! Stop!" Tai tried blocking each smack. "Think back!"

"Think back to what?" She exclaimed. "I've never met you in my life!"

He stepped back shielding his face. The hits were starting to smart. "Ouch! Stop! Think of the digital world! _Ack!_ Of Odaiba! We were soccer buddies! Sora, stop!"

"You're crazy! I said get off my property right this instant!"

Tai could feel his body begin to flicker. No! _No-no-no!_ If he was reset again, he was going to forget everything. How many of his friends came to, only to be reset? For how long had they all been like this? Where in the world was his sister? In a panic, he snatched Sora's book away and threw it to the side. With all his strength, he resisted the reset until he could at least tell Sora.

"Look at me, Sora! Look into my eyes and tell me you don't have nightmares that keep you from sleeping! Tell me that you don't see me in them and then feel your body being ripped to shreds as you die at the end. It's me, Tai. Your boyfriend?" The flickering became frequent and he could feel himself losing the battle to keep his memories.

Sora's muscles tensed. How did he know about her nightmares? He did look familiar, but she didn't have a boyfriend. His face though…Those eyes; they looked like the same ones in her dreams, desperate to tell her something. "How…How did you?"

Tai curled his pinky with hers trying to ignore the overall pain that was growing as his voice was becoming strained. "Please, think back. I can't hold back much longer. You're Sora Takenouchi, my girlfriend. I'm Tai Kamiya, your boyfriend. We were fighting a war against Chicanemon–" He winced in pain. He let out a few breaths and pushed forward. "This is all an illusion and we have to go find the others. I promised that I'd find you, but it may take me longer than I thought to figure out how to beat this."

Sora squinted her eyes examining their pinkies connected. This felt familiar. She looked up to Tai as recognition flashed in her eyes. "Tai?"

"Yes!" He kissed her rejoicing inside as she responded back and tears streamed down her cheeks. "Sor, I love you! I love you, baby! Find the digivices! Find Agumon! Get Izzy to remember and give my digivice to him because mine has the–"

Before Tai could finish, he was reset. His body disappeared from her sight and was placed back on his yard filming his vlog with no memory of what occurred moments before.

* * *

Sora stood frozen, her tears of happiness turned into sadness. She had to be careful on her next spoken words and actions because she knew Chicanemon was controlling this illusion, or dimension, or whatever the hell they were in. She managed to break free of Chicanemon's control several times this week, and as a role-reversal, did the same to Tai while he was filming his vlog – Or now it was 'Taichi' since he was back under the evil digimon's control again. But each time, after Tai regained his memory, they were both reset along with his camera that filmed the encounter leaving no proof to show the others.

Swallowing her tears, she forced a fake, confused expression and walked over to pick up her book. Reading the title of the cover, she resisted rolling her eyes: The Forbidden Red String of Fate. This digimon was truly demented. The evil digimon was getting his kicks on keeping them separated, yet so close. It was becoming consistent that in this world they were all stuck in, not only could Chicanemon tweak a person's personality, he could also give whatever the person's desire was with a sick twist. Allowing Tai and herself to recognize each other only to be reset was another one of his sick twists. Who knows what the others were going through. It took everything in her not to throw the book down and flick the evil digimon off.

As she walked back to the tree to sit down and pretend to read she heard a desperate: _"SORA!"_

She shut her eyes fighting back sobs and stood holding her book back up as a weapon to hit Tai again. For everyone's sake, if she was the only one that could pretend to be under Chicanemon's control until she could find a way to help everyone break free, then so be it. She'd pretend to not recognize him.

_"I said, get off my property!"_

Tai flickered before he could reach her, was 'reset', and placed back in his yard. His video camera flickered, and as usual, Taichi continued to swat it, annoyed, until it stopped.

She sighed and sat again on her blanket resting her back against the tree. She felt the tree flicker morphing from a cherry blossom into an oak tree with low branches. Usually, she would have wanted to climb such a majestic tree as this one, but it was probably best to sit here and continue to read this book. Tai would have loved to climb this tree. It was similar to their tree back home. Her Tai. Her poor Tai.

_"SORAA!"_

Out of reflex, she dropped the book and jumped to her feet rushing to Tai crying. He remembered again and it was happening faster than before! She felt her body flickering once more, but she didn't care. She had to hold him! She had to kiss him and tell him everything was going to be okay! She was going to resist this 'reset' again if it was the last thing she did. The two ran into each other's arms crying, resisting the reset. Tai curled his pinky to hers again saying the same thing to her moments ago. He always said the same thing. Each day was the same repeat over and over again.

"Tai!" She took hold of his cheeks breaking their kiss. "Listen to me! We're going to be reset again! When you get your memories back be careful of your actions and what you say out loud! Your thoughts are your only safeguard. I don't know how, but you've got to get this in your subconscious. Each of us lives on this street. We all have a pattern. Break the pattern and you'll break this curse–"

As usual, each were reset and placed back into their respected spots.

* * *

"Hey, guys! It's your main man, Taichi Yagami! For today's topic, we're gonna talk about cleats…"

Taichi held his head from a sudden headache. This was probably happening since he didn't have his usual breakfast. Of course! He remembered he only had hot green tea because he allowed one stupid little dream shake him to the core. Oh, wait. Didn't that Chef Mimi lady give him cookies? He dug into his pockets until he pulled out the plastic baggie of fresh chocolate chip cookies and took a bite. Mmm-mmm! That hit the spot!

As he took another bite, his peripheral vision caught sight of a beautiful red-haired lady sitting on a blanket reading a book in the yard across the street from his. She looked so familiar! He put the cookies back in his pocket for later. Did he know her from somewhere? How could he forget about someone like her? He had to meet her. He had to introduce himself. He could say something along the lines of _'Welcome to the neighborhood! When did you move in?'_ or _'If you ever need a cup of sugar…'_

_Ugh. Cup of sugar. Really, Taichi?_

That was a really cool looking tree in her yard too. That one must have flickered recently into existence because he would have remembered that tree. Old oak trees were one of the best ones to climb, what with their thick, low branches bending from the decades its lived weighting them down. She was so engrossed reading her book, maybe he shouldn't disturb her. Maybe he would climb the tree high enough instead and watch her from above in silence? That way, if he was wrong no one would be the wiser?

_Like a weirdo stalking his prey. Get a grip._

"Ah," he waved a hand in the air dismissing his previous thoughts.

Who did that? Who climbed trees to watch a girl? He wasn't a kid anymore.

His heart skipped a beat.

He couldn't shake this feeling that he knew her from somewhere and if it was one thing, he always trusted his gut. Fine. He'll use his stealth-like skills and be, like, five minutes – In and out!

What could go wrong with that?


	3. Roadblocks

__

_There's something wonderful being sucked into another world when reading a story. You, the reader, can choose your poison: Fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, drama, horror, thriller._

_But not romance. The hell would you want to choose that?_

_Wasting your time reading a pathetic romance novel would be the same as wasting your life looking for 'love'._

_We all live and die in an endless circle of life. Nothing exists after that. You only have one shot, one life to live, to make whatever you do count. Why bother to deal with romance when there are lands to explore and mysteries to be solved?_

_Romance isn't real. Love_ _isn't real._

_Reproduction is real. Reproduction exists for obvious reasons: To continue to exist. That's it. Romance is a useless and inconceivable idea that was formed to fool many into an endless torture of 'when will my prince charming come?'_

_Honey, prince charming doesn't exist. It's only you and yourself. Forget about this red string of fate 'lore' that has you tied to –_

Sora felt bits of objects sprinkle onto the top of her hair. She shook her head using a hand to help swipe whatever it was off. Must have been those darn squirrels again jumping tree to tree. She went back to reading her book "The Forbidden Red String of Fate" readjusting her back against the oak tree.

__

_Forget about this red string of fate 'lore' that has you tied to these illusions that everyone has someone that's perfect for them._

_That's bullshit._

_You're worthless._

Again, she swiped the top of her head feeling the sprinkles. These squirrels were becoming annoying. It may be time to head back inside if she wanted to keep reading this self-help book. Her therapist, Dr. Kido, strongly suggested that she'd read it. The reasons why were fuzzy, but she had to admit that it was helping her make sense of these unnecessary feelings she had inside.

As she brought the book close to her lips to blow what fell off her head away, she paused to examine it further. That didn't look like anything that would come from a tree. In fact, it looked like crumbs. She listened intently for the squirrels. Come to think of it, she hadn't heard any squirrels climbing about. Odd.

That could only mean…

Cautiously, Sora slowly turned her head up and to the left feeling a presence just above her. A small scream escaped her and she jerked back. There was a man hanging upside-down off one of the oak tree branches chewing on a cookie watching her - at least until she noticed him.

The man hurried to garble his explanation while holding the cookie between his teeth. Both hands were held up in a surrender as he hung there. "Wait! Hold on! I'm your neighbor from across the street, Taichi Yagami! I saw you reading and I didn't want to disturb – **_Oww!_** _My eye!_ "

Frightened as could be, Sora had balled a fist and punched this crazy stalker so she could make her escape to the safety of her home. The cookie and Taichi fell to the ground as he clutched his right eye and let out another scream of pain as he landed.

_"Wait!"_ Taichi's voice strained in pain as he stretched a hand out to her while she slammed the door shut.

He had to explain himself! It wasn't whatever she thought! Moaning from the pain and defeat, Taichi sat up clutching his eye and his aching back. Admittedly, this wasn't his proudest moment. His heart beat faster. That face...Her eyes...He couldn't shake it that he knew her from somewhere, and when his gut said something...

As much as Taichi would have preferred to knock on her door to explain, the sharp pain in his eye was begging for medical attention. That's when he saw it: The cookies inside his baggie were broken into pieces lying next to him.

"Aw, come on!" He whined snatching the baggie and stuffed it back in his pocket. _"I should have stuck with the cup of sugar!"_

* * *

"Tell me why again?" Dr. Jou Kido loudly sighed while flushing Taichi's eye with saline from a plastic bottle to verify all foreign objects and dirt were removed.

"Doc, I'm telling you, she was the most beautiful person I've ever seen, but man can she land a punch!"

"And that equates stalking as an acceptable reason to frighten Sora?"

Taichi pulled back to eye him annoyed that this man assumed him to be a stalker. "Stalking would mean constantly and intentionally following her every move. I only climbed a tree, dude."

Dr. Kido frowned placing the saline bottle on a nearby counter and crossed his arms waiting for a further explanation.

Dr. Jou Kido was the town doctor and psychologist who conveniently lived next door to Taichi. He practiced at home and had one room that was turned into treating patients with their medical issues and another for therapy sessions. He was quite proud of his accomplishments and loved to help people, but it was dumb situations like these that really made him want to slap his patients.

Taichi slowly lifted a hand to cover his injured eye. The uncomfortableness dripping from Dr. Kido was enough to fill the room and suffocating. He tried to play off his next question as small talk. "So! Her name's Sora? You've met her recently?"

There was an awkward pause from the doctor as if he was struggling with how to answer. Instead, the doctor quickly pinned Taichi's head back and squirted saline with a strong force!

**_"Ack!_** _"_ Taichi pushed him away. He couldn't believe his doctor would intentionally cause him pain! " _What the hell, Doc!_ "

"I thought I saw an object," the doctor muttered with irritation.

"When my hand was covering my eye? What's your deal!"

Dr. Kido snapped his gloves off, threw them in the trash, and sat in his chair taking hold of Taichi's patient file. His answer was stern. "I shouldn't have said her name. She's a patient of mine and due to 'patient confidentiality' I can't say anything else. But listen closely to me, Mr. Yagami, do not do that to her again - regardless of your…'innocent' intentions."

Taichi's eyes squinted and back straightened. This guy was implying he was lying! "After all these years, you honestly think I'm capable of hurting someone? Sometimes I make mistakes, and this was one I should have thought through."

"Let me stress," Dr. Kido stood to his feet and held the door open for Taichi. His mannerisms and tone became cold. "She's a _long_ time patient. Any romantic intentions are out of the question."

"Good thing I was only saying hello to my new neighbor," Taichi lashed back hopping off the patient table. He had enough of the accusations for one day.

* * *

Kari clutched a small cardboard box that held handmade clay objects she crafted and painted in class today. She was a college student taking classes to become a kindergarten teacher and loved working with children…in the real world that is. In this world, she was Hikari, already a kindergarten teacher, who had to pretend she was teaching a small group of children in her house.

The problem was 'pretending'.

Pretend she was under this 'curse' to avoid being reset like the others. Pretend this was the only life she knew until she found Yukimibotamon and the rest of the digimon partners. Pretend to teach children, that didn't exist, speaking to the empty air in her house. Pretend, like a little kid, that she was playing 'school' and everything was a-okay.

She had a theory as to why everyone was able to break free from the curse for a few minutes at some time or another before alerting Chicanemon and being reset back. It was the light that was released from their digivices that surrounded each one before Chicanemon sucked them into his alternate universe. Perhaps it helped retained their memories and what was helping everyone fight this mental battle without even realizing it; like a vaccine to the virus.

Even so, it was hard passing by her fiancé, TK, or Takeru Ishida, the name he went by here, and not break character. This evil digimon was truly feeding off of everyone's misery by twisting their desires.

She came up with a plan: As a kindergarten teacher, part of her job was to make lesson plans for the day. Lesson plans needed to have plenty of time for fun activities. Today she helped her 'class' make 'nice' monsters from clay. This was how she was able to get away with making mini replicas of Gatomon, Agumon, Tentomon and everyone else. She hoped after handing them out to her friends this would help jog their memories.

The trick was to jog their memories without them verbally saying out loud that they remembered - which may prove to be challenging after watching her brother and Sora every day for five days. This seemed to be Chicanemon's weakness in this world: As long as they didn't verbally speak of the curse, it wouldn't draw attention. If the evil digimon was watching constantly, he would have reset Kari, and the clay replicas of the digimon partners would have flickered away from existence.

It surprised Kari though to see her brother leaving Joe - No - Dr. Kido's office with a swollen black eye. Today he broke out of his usual pattern. Odd. What happened to cause that?

"Excuse me!" Kari headed his direction. "Excuse me? Hi! I'm Kar–" she caught herself almost saying the wrong name. "Hikari! I live across the street from Koushiro's house."

Taichi shook the hand she held out, his frown that formed from previous events melting away. "I'm Taichi Yagami! Nice to meet you! Say, what was your last name again?"

"My last name?" Kari shrugged, hating to pretend she didn't know her brother. "I don't have a last name."

Taichi was taken aback. "You don't…Who doesn't have a last name?"

"I just don't," she laughed it off. "I'm not the only one that doesn't have a last name. Chef Mimi and Sora don't either." It hit her just then. Only the females didn't have last names. How demeaning...

"Sora?" Hope gleamed in Taichi's eyes, well, at least the one that wasn't injured. "Do you know her?"

"Uh, y-yes! Yes, I do. Why?" She had to be careful with what she'd say. He was falling back into his pattern of chasing Sora.

"Can you introduce her to me? I kinda messed up this morning and she gave me this black eye. I wanna show her I'm not some kind of creep-o person."

"Well, I don't know," she teased with a giggle.

Even with the curse, he was still pining after his crush. Though from the past few days when Tai and Sora came to, they acted as if they were something more. If something did happen, how come her brother never mentioned anything? He would have been over the moon telling everyone.

"How do I know you really aren't a creep-o?" she grinned continuing to tease him. "Sora wouldn't have punched you if you didn't deserve it."

"I'm not, ok!" Frustrated, he raised his voice speaking to the air so that everyone could hear. "I'm just a guy that wanted to say hi to his new neighbor! Why can't people see that?"

"Relax!" Kari laughed waving his concern away. "I'll introduce you on one condition: I made these in class today with my kiddos and it'd be a shame to throw them away. Would you mind having one?"

Taichi's face faltered. He wasn't into figurines. "Uh, I'm good–"

Hoping that her big brother was still there somewhere deep down inside, she used one of her tricks whenever she wanted him to buy her ice cream: The big, sad, manipulative cat eyes. "Please?"

"...Geeze. If it'd mean that much to you."

"Great!" She took hold of the Agumon figurine and held it out. "What about this one?"

"Nah, I want this one," he dismissed her suggestion and held the Patamon figurine. "What is it anyway? Some kind of bat-pig?"

Oh, if Patamon could hear him…

"Ooh, ooh! This one!" He switched the Patamon for the Gomamon figurine and examined it. "What's this one supposed to be?"

"Honestly, I don't have a clue," she chuckled. "Maybe a monster that likes water because of his big feet?" That was a mistake to say as she watched the excitement in Taichi's good eye grow. He always did like scary movies…

"Uh, but I think you'd like this dinosaur," she insisted holding the Agumon figurine out to him again. "I always thought of dinosaurs to be brave and courageous, and you've got to be brave to face Sora again to risk another black eye."

"…Lady, you've got too much time on your hands," he remarked slowly putting the Gomamon down and taking the Agumon.

Kari sheepishly grinned. "You have no idea…"

* * *

"Say, have we met before?" Taichi asked his new friend while they headed to Sora's house. All the alarms were going off that they were once close.

Kari slightly paused in her steps before keeping up with his pace again. "Don't think so."

"Are you sure? I kinda got this superpower when I know something is off and..." He stopped walking. Was she trying not to cry? Crap. Did he date her in the past and she was hurt he didn't remember?

"What?" She halted sensing he wasn't next to her. Turning back to him she quickly rubbed her eyes to hide her tears and sniffed a few times. She couldn't break down here. Not now. "What's the matter?"

"Allergies?" It was probably best to help her save face. She couldn't have been a past girlfriend. It was feeling more like a roommate. A close roommate.

"Yea-yeah. Allergies. I get them all the time. Listen," she decided to mention, not just to divert his attention, but to also help him with regaining his memory, "one thing to know about her is that she's seeing Dr. Kido for therapy. Not long ago she snapped raving about this wasn't the 'real world' and that she had to get back to saving her friends. He has her reading this new self-help book that his friend, Takeru, wrote and she says it's been helping her, but…" she trailed off.

"But, what? She's still crazy?" They both headed to Sora's house again.

"No," Kari chuckled. "I never thought she was crazy in the first place. I think she lost her boyfriend and making up a new world helped her cope." It was a shot in the dark, but she figured it was possible that something more than likely developed between Tai and Sora.

"Soooo, she's crazy? Because normal people sulk at home eating junk food."

They stood on Sora's front porch. "I'm telling you she's not cra…" Kari sighed and her thoughts went to her fiancé. It was so tempting to do the same as Sora trying to find everyone and jog their memories verbally like any sane person would. It was through Sora's trial and error that Kari was everyone's last hope. Even TK's.

"Look, I know we just met and you don't know me from Adam, but can you promise me one thing?" Kari took her pinky and hooked it to his.

Ever since they were little, pinky swears meant they were unbreakable. There were dire consequences if the promise made wasn't followed through and Kari always made sure to remind her brother of this rule she made up. Her brother. How she missed her brother. Here he was standing in front of her and she couldn't hug him. Her own brother didn't recognize her.

She cleared her throat trying her best to keep her 'allergies' at bay and whispered her request. She hoped that Chicanemon wasn't listening. "Try to get Sora to stop reading that book. It's sucking the life out of her and, if anything, _that's_ what's making her crazy."

"Hikari?" Taichi whispered back looking at their pinkies intertwined with confusion. "Why are you whispering?"

Kari gritted her teeth hoping to the gods above that she wasn't reset. She held his pinky tighter whispering again. "Use your superpower, dammit! Who am I?"

Taichi eyed how far away his house was. If he had to guess, Sora wasn't the one that was crazy. "Lady, look, thanks for the gift, but I'm not buying anything you're saying. I think I'll meet her without you another day."

Kari let out a short huff and yanked on his pinky again with a harsh whisper. "Try again! What is your gut saying?"

He looked down to their pinkies. This felt familiar.

_It feels like we lived together, but it wasn't romantic. Why can't she just say who she is?_

His heart beat fast. Memories flashed before his eyes.

_She came to my soccer games! She'd bring my lunch any time I'd forget! Whenever she was sick I'd watch over her until Mom came back._

He dropped her pinky and gripped her shoulders frustrated, the revelation hanging on the tip of his tongue.

_Hikari isn't her name. She's...She's my_ _..._

"Kari?" he whispered back. He remembered! He remembered who she was! Tai tightly hugged his sister and the two did their best to stifle their tears of joy. "I've missed you."

"Tai," she pulled him away from Sora's porch and back to the sidewalk continuing with a hushed voice. "Don't answer me when I ask you this question: Do you remember anything out of the ordinary from this morning?"

_This morning? Why would she…Sora!_

Tai looked to Sora's house alarmed and just as fast back to Kari. Before he could say anything or act, Kari hurried to cover his mouth.

"Sshh! Just listen." In a normal tone, she spoke to her brother as if she was Hikari. They were whispering for too long. "Take this bird monster," she handed him the figurine of Biyomon, "and give it to Sora as a 'let's start over' gift. Say I'm a good friend of yours. That'll help her see you're not a 'creep-o.'"

She winked, and switching back to whispering, reminded him of what Sora mentioned earlier this morning. "Your thoughts are your only way to win this war. If something important needs to be said, write it down. Help her to come back without saying anything, but don't forget your usual pattern."

His pattern? Oh, right. Vlogs. He would stand on his lawn making vlogs until sunset with the occasional interruption from Koushiro, or technically Izzy, and whenever Sora would sit in her front yard. She was always the 'new neighbor'.

They needed to stop whispering soon before Chicanemon caught on. Tai swallowed the lump forming in his throat. How he wanted to hug his sister tight again and beat the crap out of Chicanemon.

"Hey," he hugged his sister replying back in a normal tone. "Thanks for the dinosaur gift, Hikari. You're right. I think I'm more like a dinosaur. We'll talk more another day, alright?"

* * *

Tai stood in front of Sora's front door holding the Agumon and Biyomon figurines in his hands, studying them, as Kari headed to Dr. Kido's office to give away another figurine. He was trying to come up with a plan on how to save them all without being reset. How would he be able to do that without actually voicing it? Writing it down may prove to be risky and it was way too risky whispering again like Kari did.

Kari brought him back with a meaningful gesture, the same one that he used to get Sora back before because that was their thing. The three always did that. But the others? It was times like these he really needed Izzy to help generate ideas.

Which also bared the question: Where in the world were everyone's Digimon partners and digivices?

With slumped shoulders and releasing a deep sigh, Tai raised a fist lightly rapping on the front door. It felt as if a heavy cloud loomed over his head. After all these years growing up with Sora, wishing she'd feel the same way, only to have his wish granted and torn away minutes apart, it was heartbreaking. Now it felt like he had to start from the beginning.

_But I do know just about everything about her. I can use that to my advantage and win her over again until she mentally comes back to me! Problem is, where is that fine line between bringing her back and staying as 'Taichi'?_

The front door opened revealing TK - No, Takeru, as he was known here, standing on the other side and was greeted instantly with a frown.

Tai slightly jumped not expecting him, and waved hello with a nervous grin trying to act like 'Taichi'. "Hi, Takeru! I haven't seen you in a few days! Still looking for a story to write? Hanging with Sora today?"

Tai could hear Sora asking in the background who was at the front door, then Matt's voice responding. What was going on in there?

Takeru stepped out closing the door behind him forcing Tai to step back. His jaw muscles clenched and the words that were spoken were icy. "Yeah, I found my story with Sora and published it. Dr. Kido is using it to treat Sora and I _don't_ appreciate you constantly trying to regress her progress. Yamato and I would _deeply_ appreciate it if you'd back away from now on."

Tai's mouth hung open in shock. It was hard to keep reminding himself this wasn't TK. How would 'Taichi' react to this? Sora was his new neighbor. He'd be confused, that's what. He'd be obsessed in wanting to meet her.

"Regress?" Tai let out a nervous chuckle scratching the back of his neck. "I'm not sure what that's all about. I came by to apologize for scaring her and wanted to introduce myself. She _is_ my new neighbor, after all."

The front door opened and Yamato stepped through. His icy tone and glare matched Takeru's, opposed to this morning's friendly stance. "I'm afraid I'll have to insist as well: Leave."


	4. I Swear

"Whoa, breathe!" Chef Mimi rushed over to Koushiro giving sharp slaps on his back as he struggled to drink oxygen to the point of choking on his own saliva.

Where the hell was he? What in holy hell happened? The last Koushiro remembered, he held his wife in his arms as Chicanemon swallowed them whole - Mimi!

Koushiro finally caught his breath and swung around tightly embracing her. He remembered everything! He wasn't Koushiro Izumi. He wasn't a workaholic stay-at-home programmer solving mysteriously broken codes that never seemed to end for a job that could care less that he needed a lunch or bathroom break; his computer desk was where he slept, ate and worked. He wasn't Taichi's - _No!_ \- Tai's cranky and crazy next door neighbor any time his friend was making his daily vlogs.

No.

He was Izzy Izumi, a digidestined that was once the owner of the Crest of Knowledge. He owned his own computer firm with his friend and business partner, Yolie Ichijouji, and although he'd lose track of the time drinking his oolong tea, he'd still take care of himself; far from a workaholic. Married life with Mimi was the best thing he ever did. She brought life and happiness to his world, reminding him there was more to life than a computer screen. She was that missing puzzle piece, the excitement he always craved, but struggled to experience, unless there was a battle in the digital world to be fought.

And just now he managed to break free from his 'reset' again due to his subconscious playing the events of the war they were fighting in his dreams as a nightmare. He must've dozed off yet again in front of his computer.

He had to compose himself! As much as he wanted to wake his wife from her living nightmare, if he wanted to avoid being reset, like last time when he tried to help 'Taichi', he had to release his wife from this hug, fight the urge to tell her the truth, and find some rational explanation for his reaction before Mimi voiced her concern out loud for Chicanemon to hear. It was too much of a risk to wake her with the commotion he created and verbally speaking one's thoughts weren't safe.

"You're scaring me. Koushiro?" Chef Mimi pushed herself away taking a few steps back.

Izzy blushed struggling to come up with an explanation. He never liked lying to her, but if he really needed a way to release himself from the guilt: Mentally, she was 'Chef Mimi', not Mimi Izumi.

"Uh, sorry. I realize that was out of character for me. I…was scared choking on my saliva and was grateful you saved me," he stammered out an explanation.

Chef Mimi weakly smiled taking note of his off behavior. Usually, he'd yell at any little thing and here he was apologizing instead. She wrung her hands, "Well, I couldn't leave you to die on me and I _am_ employed to take care of you."

"Yes, well…"

What could he say to distract her? He knew where all of their digimon friends were being held captive and he had to reach them!

The first two times he was reset, Izzy took a quick break from work as 'Koushiro' to clear his head walking in the woods behind his backyard from thinking of a solution for this unsolvable, broken code. Taking a walk in the woods behind his backyard, he stumbled on finding all of their digimon friends locked behind a barred, metal cage in the woods behind his house. Seeing them was what helped him break free each time - which resulted in Izzy flickering into a reset as Koushiro once more, and finding himself sitting back in front of his computer trying to solve the unsolvable code again with no recollection of the previous events.

The third time, his subconscious replayed the battle as a nightmare while taking a nap, much like what happened just now, and he came to as Izzy again. He heard 'Taichi' recording his usual vlog and Izzy tried to stay in pattern with Koushiro's personality, but also attempted to jog Taichi's memory. Chicanemon caught on and reset Izzy.

He couldn't let that happen again.

He needed to bring food to help them digivolve when it was time. What was Chef Mimi's weakness? She cooked. Day and night, she cooked with barely any time to sleep, always thinking whatever was presented to Koushiro wasn't good enough and needed improvement. Always at the grocery store for ingredients. Always pressuring herself to come up with new ideas only to realize someone else already came up with the same recipe on an online food blog. She was her own worst critic. This was her personal circle of hell.

That's it! He'd have to demand more food!

Izzy pushed the guilt aside from how he was about to treat his wife - It was for the better good of everyone that he'd stay in character as Koushiro until he found some answers. He hoped she'd forgive him later.

"What the hell is your problem? I already apologized for scaring you. If you want a trophy, go look somewhere else!" He stood to his feet gathering a legal sized notepad and pencil. "Eraser…eraser," he muttered with feigned annoyance. "Cheese on a cracker with all that is holy!" He smacked the container that held all his pens, pencils and highlighters to the floor. "Has anyone seen the God-forsaken eraser!"

Chef Mimi rolled her eyes heading back to the kitchen to work on her pie crust. "Aaaand, he's back. That was short-lived."

"Nobody cares about your side comments!" Izzy lashed back, internally wincing.

Hugging the legal sized notepad and pencil to his side, he shoved Chef Mimi aside as he passed her in the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door.

Grabbing a few plastic containers of food, he slammed the fridge door shut, and stormed out the back door all the while saying, "I need a break! I need to clear my head so I can go back to writing code. I don't know when I'll be back, so, just…I don't know! Keep cooking whatever the hell you're cooking. I want a crap-tastic feast by the time I get home!"

Normally, Chef Mimi wouldn't stand for this disrespect. She dedicated her life's work to bring honor to her title as chef and no grumpy recluse would ever get passed her thick skin to make her feel lower than dirt. This would be the moment her employer would feel her wrath, but he demanded a feast. _A feast!_ She had to rush to the grocery store again! What spices would blend well together with the meat pie she was baking? What sides would make his taste buds tingle with joy?

"Don't come back too soon!" she grabbed her purse rushing out the front door excited. "I'll make you the best feast yet!"

Izzy let out a long sigh mentally shaking off 'Koushiro's' character. He knew once Mimi came to, she'd understand why he did what he did, but he couldn't help feel the urge that after this was all over to book them a vacation to get away for a while. He needed to hold his wife and feel her support. The sooner this war was over, the sooner he could be in her arms again.

* * *

The sun was setting after a long day. Hidden not too far off in the woods behind his backyard, Izzy sat next to the barred metal cage, the ground covered in wet leaves and twigs, writing his questions on the notepad while all of the digimon scarfed down the food he brought in the plastic containers. They didn't need much convincing to stay quiet as he wrote his questions:

**_Do any of you know where our digivices are?_ **

They stopped eating and hopped to the back end of the cage shifting leaves aside. Each one grabbed their partner's digivice in their mouth and turned back to Izzy. Izzy silently sucked air in with relief. They had them! He wanted to ask how they managed to do so, but there were more important things to figure out.

**_How long have we all been stuck here?_ **

Pabumon grabbed the pencil with his mouth that Izzy held out and wrote the answer:

**_5 days_ **

He took back his pencil and ask the next question that had been nagging him:

**_How many others broke out of the curse?_ **

The digimon looked to each other blinking, not knowing the answer. That must mean that Izzy was the only one to find them. Izzy grimaced. This wasn't good. How was he going to do this by himself? The crystal! He wrote the next question out:

**_What happened with the crystal? Did the others find it? Was it in the cave?_ **

Botamon and Nyokimon whimpered. Botamon was the one to write his message:

**_Tai and Sora made it to the cave, but we don't know what happened after that. Chicanemon captured us before we could see if they found it._ **

"Gah!" Izzy held a wrist to his forehead frustrated.

The crystal was the key in resetting Chicanemon's DNA and it was looking like only Tai and Sora knew the answer.

As Izzy wrote his next question out, he heard footsteps coming from behind. His eyes widened and instantly stood to his feet hiding the notepad behind his back. He was prepared with a backup story in case this scenario would occur and even wrote a random computer code on the front page of his notepad to back it up, but he may have been in luck. There stood Hikari, or Kari, (he'd have to figure out which) with a cardboard box, her line of sight switching between the digimon in the cage and Izzy struggling on how to react. YukimiBotamon was jumping up and down with excitement trying her best to stay quiet.

Izzy hurried to write his question on the notepad and then held the pencil out to her so she could respond back:

**_Hikari or Kari?_ **

Kari's lower lip quivered as she jogged to Izzy dropping the box to the ground and hugged him tight doing her best to muffle her sobs. It was Kari! He wasn't the only one that broke free! Izzy held her back tight feeling relief and happiness wash over him. There was hope after all! Hopefully, she could shed some light to his questions.

Kari knelt down to YukimiBotamon sniffing away her tears as she gave her a kiss on the head. To the rest, she scratched their heads as her greeting. Kari then stood, took the notepad and pencil and wrote to Izzy:

**_As of now, Tai's the only other one that's free. We need to help the others._ **

She walked back to her box, and turned back around to Izzy holding out the Tentomon figurine, speaking in a normal tone.

"Good evening, Koushiro! I made these little monster figurines out of clay in class today. There's one that looks like a robot that I think you'll like. Want it?" She winked at Pabumon as she asked her question.

* * *

Sora caught her bedroom wall with both hands taking rapid breaths, lowering her head, as memories flashed before her eyes. It was happening again. Her mind was deceiving her once more with false memories of a war with a monster. Dr. Kido said regardless that her friends were in her dreams, the false war with these false memories was her brain trying to make sense of the past trauma she experienced. But this time it felt so real. Too real. Where were her pills? Didn't she take her required dose earlier that day?

She dropped to her knees, desperately gasping for air. Her body couldn't drink enough oxygen. She must've forgotten to take her anti-anxiety medication when the whole fiasco of Taichi trying to meet her with Yamato and Takeru coming to her rescue. She was having another one of her panic attacks. She needed her pills to calm her. Crawling on her hands and knees to her nightstand, she named objects in her head as she saw them to try to distract her brain:

_Shoes_ … _comforter_ … _rug_ … _window_ …

It wasn't working. Trembling fingertips grazed the plastic container, accidently tipping the bottle over, causing the pills to spill to the ground. It felt as doom was squeezing every inch of her lungs. Sweat was forming on her forehead and her heartbeat raced. Not again! This couldn't be happening again! She just needed one pill! One frigging pill.

_Pick one up, you stupid idiot! You're so worthless that you can't even pick up a pill to swallow it! Oh my God, I'm gonna die. **I…can't…breathe!**_

Pounding sounded on her bedroom window. Renewed strength raced through Sora's arms pushing her up from the ground and her breathing quicken even more. It was Taichi! He was yelling for her to open the latch! She pushed her back flush with her nightstand shaking her head crying. Yamato and Takeru weren't here to save her again. Why wouldn't he leave her alone? Why couldn't he see he was torturing her of the past, every day and night? The pill! She needed the pill to be reset again. She needed her daily reset, or these panic attacks would increase.

Her neighbor pressed his hands and nose on her window begging her to open the latch. If she didn't know any better, she'd say he actually appeared concerned about her. With shaky hands, she grasped one pill and slowly brought it to her lips, but it was Taichi's reaction that stopped her cold in her tracks.

"I swear, Sora, if you don't open this window, I'm gonna break it. _Don't take that and open the goddamn window!"_

This man was crazy! She needed to call Yamato again. Quickly, she swallowed the pill dry. Everything after that happened in a blur:

Smashing glass. Sora jumped over her twin bed. Foreign arms wrapped around her stomach from the back. Slaps, kicks, arms again, _punch-punch-punch!_ Hallway. Race towards next closest room. Quickened footsteps from behind. Cell phone on hallway bathroom counter. _Smack!_ Cellphone on floor. Arms around her stomach from the back again. An inward thrust to her stomach. Dry heave. Another inward thrust. Vomit. Another inward thrust. So much vomit. Dizzy. _Can't breathe!_ Spinning room. Taichi's voice booming. _Need oxygen!_

Black.

* * *

Sora's eyes fluttered open. She was in bed, lying on top of the covers. Her brain felt foggy. What just happened? Her mouth had the taste of vomit - Vomit? She looked to her bedroom window to find the bottom window pane smashed.

Shit! It wasn't a dream. That really happened! She tried sitting up fast to search for any kind of object to defend herself in case he was still in her house. Blackness washed before her eyes from sitting up fast.

"Whoa, whoa, not too fast!"

It was him! He was still here! As her vision slowly came back, she tried to fight her way out of his grasp. "Get out of my house! Get out! _Get out!"_

Taichi quickly backed away with his hands up in surrender. Quite ironically, his day started out in a surrender and it was ending in a surrender. "Let's just take a second here to recap, okay? I know this is all confusing, and this looks bad on my part again -"

"You think!" she yelled. "I'm on the second floor! That means you climbed the tree to jump onto my balcony to stalk me-"

"I'm not stalking you!"

There was that word again! First Joe, or Dr. Kido as Sora knew him by, and now Sora. Did that mean that everyone else on this block thought Tai was a stalker? Why else would Yamato and Takeru stop him?

She pointed to the direction of her front door downstairs. "A normal person knocks on the door." Then pointed to her window. "Stalkers climb trees and smash windows!"

"I had to stop you from taking that pill!"

_"Which you wouldn't have known about if someone wasn't stalking me!"_

"I bet you don't even know what that pill does to you! That isn't you. You don't need meds."

Sora glanced to the hallway and back to Taichi. This guy thought he knew what she needed? "…I'm going to call Yamato, and this time you're not going to stop me."

This wasn't his Sora. This was 'reset' Sora. Perhaps a different approach was needed. Tai sighed pinching his eyes. "Hold on. Just…Hold on. Let's make a deal. Can we do that? Five minutes."

"And then what?" she shook her head.

"Can we start over? Tell me why you're so scared of me. What did I ever do to you?"

She scoffed while scratching an itch on her nose. "You're kidding, right?"

"I wish I was," he shrugged, desperate to hear her answer.

Sora eyed her neighbor scrupulously. Her heart pounded rapidly against her chest, but it wasn't from another panic attack. No. This time it was her gut, and it was saying that he was being truthful. This guy had no idea. That was hard to believe, but he really didn't. Everyone knew why. Why didn't he? She swung her legs over her bed, sitting tall. Was it worth it?

Taking in a deep breath, she stood to her feet. "Five minutes. Fix my window and I'll give you five minutes, Taichi. But, I swear to Chicanemon, if I sense for a _second_ that you're lying about anything, I have Yamato on speed dial, and he'll be the one kicking your ass _after_ I'm done with you."

Tai let out a nervous chuckle looking at the broken shards of glass on the bedroom carpet. "Fix the window? Like, right now fix the window?"

She raised a brow placing a hand on her hip. "Seriously? You're a newbie at channeling your desires?"

"Uh, I guess…It can't be that hard…" he walked over to the shards trailing off his sentence scratching his head.

Sora sighed. "Taichi," she walked behind him. "It's okay if you've never done it before. I bet it's always happened to you, but you're always so busy with your internet stardom that you've never noticed. Am I right?"

Tai meekly nodded.

She rolled her eyes. That wasn't convincing. "Desire 101: Imagine what you want done, close your eyes, and send your desire to Lord Chicanemon. He's always in the air we breathe, the song we sing. His power flows through us and always wants the best for us. But we need to acknowledge his existence before he answers those desires."

"Uh, right," Tai agreed swallowing the lump growing in his throat. "Acknowledge. Desires. Eyes closed."

"Fine. You don't really _need_ to close your eyes," she mentioned rolling her eyes, and waved to her window. "It helps me concentrate when I do it. Now, come on. It's getting chilly."

Tai closed his eyes, scrunching his brows, and spoke to the air. His statement came out like a question. "I, uh, I really want to fix Sora's window. Could you fix it?" He opened one eye seeing the window still shattered. "Please?"

The window and shards flickered. Tai gasped, stepping back, while Sora shook her head at his reaction. She headed downstairs to grab two shot glasses and several bottles of alcohol. This guy may prove to bring an interesting close to her night. She was good in holding her alcohol and could match wits with the best of them. Here's hoping he wasn't, and if he really prove to have alternative motives, she'd have an easier time handling him if he was drunk.

* * *

The two sat on her bedroom balcony, near the wooden railing enjoying the cool, fall night air. Her window was fix like brand new. The portable fire pit was lit and they downed a shot.

Refilling their shot glasses, Sora said, "Your five minutes start now."

Tai looked down to his drink. He twisted the shot glass near the bottom against the table surface they sat next to, with two fingers back and forth. "Let's play a game. Tit for tad. I say something about me, and you tell me something about you."

She frowned looking to her phone for the time.

"I'll go first," Tai offered. "I did knock on your front door. Twice. The first time, Yamato and Takeru wouldn't let me in, like they were your bodyguards. Then this time again, no one answered. I saw your bedroom light on, and, yeah, I climbed the tree and…"

Yeah, he could see where she thought he was a stalker now. He gulped his shot and defended his actions. "Okay, but it was a good thing I did! I'm watching you have some kind of heart attack or something and who knows how many pills you took!"

"You really can't be that dumb," she poured him another drink. "The pills are scattered on the ground, and instead of thinking I dropped the pills I must need to take, you think I'm overdosing?"

"I don't know! I panicked! You're on the floor breathing heavy and your face was white as a ghost and sweaty."

"Which means you force the heimlich maneuver to get me to throw up?"

"If it meant saving your life, I'd do it again!" He downed another shot slamming the glass on the table.

"Oookay, there," she eyed him. "Strong words for not knowing me." She let out a sharp breath and mentioned an earlier comment that Tai said as it came to mind since they were on the subject. "And, anyway, I don't really need the meds? What do you know? What makes you think you know best?"

"Wouldn't you?" Tai challenged her, choosing only to acknowledge her first statement. Answering the second may cause a 'reset', a risk he wasn't willing to do just yet. "If you came across someone needing help, wouldn't you help them?"

She glanced away. He really did resemble him. That intense stare was too much to take in. "And what about this morning?"

"Nope," he shook his head. "Tit for tad. I said my tit. What's your tad?"

Rolling her eyes, she shook her head trying to think of something to say. "I guess…Those pills are to control my panic attacks. You invading my house didn't help the situation." She downed her drink.

Tai refilled her glass. "Why do you get panic attacks? Is it triggered from a main event, or is it in general?"

Sora fell silent. Eyes downcast, her thoughts went back to her nightmares. They felt so real. If it wasn't for reading "The Forbidden Red String of Fate", she'd still be thinking she was trapped in an alternate universe. That was a bullshit notion and she was worthless. She had to keep reminding herself of this to keep herself grounded.

But he sounded just like this one friend who died before she could confess that she was in love with him. He looked just like him. Her other friends were in her dreams too, but it was something about Taichi that made her want to run into his arms and stay there whenever she had that dream, and that scared the living daylights out of her.

In the dream, he killed her cold-blooded. Every night, the nightmare replayed with her dying a different way, and the man she thought she was in love with, turned out to be a serial killer.

"I had a bad experience that my mind still can't process, and it covers it up with nightmares."

Tai waited to hear more. She tried to squeeze something else out, but her throat closed. She took another shot instead.

"Move on," she slammed her glass on the table. "Why were you hanging on my tree this morning? You were the one who changed my cherry blossom tree into an oak tree, weren't you?"

He chuckled refilling her glass, "I wish I could take credit for that, but I'm the one that didn't know I could ask Lord…" Tai mentally cringed at what he almost said. "Uh, didn't know I could ask for desires to come true before this evening, remember? Whoever did that, it's a great tree to climb."

She eyed the tree. She had to admit, the branches were thick and low enough to the ground - Every kid's dream for the perfect climb. There was even something so regal and enchanting, like…

"Like a southern fairy tale - _Which don't exist."_ She hurried to say out loud. She couldn't regress. Romance was for the weak.

"Don't exist?" Tai looked to the tree slouching in his chair confused.

What was she talking about? He remembered catching a glimpse of what she was reading earlier with it mentioning that romance didn't exist and was worthless. This stupid monster was torturing her any way he could!

"Realistically, a man's not going to answer every woman's beck and call, swooning after her, like some fairy tales portray because he has a life too. Maybe he'd want his girl to be an independent thinker instead of thinking she's helpless. Maybe _he's_ the one that wants to be saved instead of always being the savior. But one thing I know for sure is that fairy tales and gentlemen do exist."

He swigged his shot, stood to his feet, and held his hand out to her. "Let's go," he motioned to the tree.

Sora looked down to the hand Tai held out. "You got all of that out of 'Fairy tales don't exist'?"

Tai motioned with his hand again and a small smile crept outward. "Let me show you what a true gentleman is. I'll help you climb that tree." The light from the fire pit danced on his face bringing a warm glow. "I can sense you've been dying to climb it since we sat here."

Biting her lower lip, she slowly reached her hand out to his. Before their hands touched, she swiftly took hers away pointing a finger at him and commanded, "I swear, if you try anything-"

"You'll kick my ass," he looked up at the starry sky saying word for word what he knew she'd say. "Yeah, you've made that clear."

"And then I'll call Yamato-"

"Can we climb the tree, please?" he chuckled with a side of annoyance.

Giving in to her desire, she snatched one of the bottles of alcohol that laid on the table, and openly wished for one of the higher branches to stretch to the railing. After this, she crossed the railing to the tree branch with ease. "Watch an independent woman at work. I'll make it look easy for you."

Tai placed a hand in his left pocket feeling for the two figurines of Agumon and Biyomon to make sure they were safe and sound. He then took his baggie of crushed chocolate chip cookies out of his right pocket, and gripped the rim of the baggie with his teeth, following her, as his famous lop-sided grin appeared.

"A woman after my own heart!"


	5. The Master of Loopholes

"What?" Confused from Sora's quizzed stare, Tai stuffed more broken bits of cookie in his already full mouth. Crumbs trickled from the side of his lips as he protectively held the baggie close to his chest.

"How can you still be hungry? Didn't you eat dinner?" she shoved another shot glass full to the rim in his direction.

"Have you tried Chef Mimi's cookies?" Tai waved a piece of cookie in her direction and then stuffed it in his now-brimming mouth. Grabbing hold of the shot glass, the next sentence was muffled as he accidentally sprayed crumbs her way. "Don't think you have, or you'd understand why."

"Taichi!" Sora scolded trying her best to block the assault of crumbs flying her way. "Gross! Dude, really, how old are you?"

He paused realizing what happened. After swallowing his snack and nervously holding the back of his neck with a small laugh, Tai held the shot glass up as if giving a toast, and downed it. "Sorry! Bottoms up!"

Were it not for noticing her eyeing what was left of his cookies, Tai would've filled his shot glass again. He smirked and handed the baggie to her waving it in the air in a teasing manner. "You _have_ tried them before, haven't you?"

Sora eyed the cookies, but didn't take them.

Tai bit his bottom lip to keep from laughing. She wanted them but was too shy to ask. He could feel it. His Sora was still shining through, regardless of the reset. "Take it…Come on!" He waved it again. "Take them! Finish it off."

"Are you sure?" She raised a few fingers, but hesitated, her mouth beginning to water.

"Yep!" She took the baggie and fished out a broken piece as Tai continued. "Tomorrow I'll raid Koushiro's fridge, or ask Mimi for more cookies," a small mischievous smile formed as he shrugged his shoulders.

Sora's eyes widened almost choking on her cookie. "You wouldn't dare!"

"Aw, he's not as tough as he looks. If he's the one that answers the door I'll say I wanted to ask Chef Mimi something. Loopholes, my friend. Loopholes," Tai rested his back against the oak tree with a satisfied tummy, closed eyes, and a wide smile to show for it.

"You're brave," she chuckled glancing to Koushiro's house. "He's that neighbor that you say 'hi' to just to be polite, but never expect a respectful response back."

"And a gentleman," Tai opened one eye looking her way with a smirk. "Don't forget that I'm always a gentleman."

Sora clamped her lips shut. It was tempting to sit here with her neighbor and entertain the idea about gentlemen and fairy tales, but she was treading on dangerous ground. If she continued this path, it may bring about the false memories and another panic attack. Or, it could help her remember whatever tragedy she experienced and see the actual face of her attacker, instead of her memory always inserting Taichi's.

Yes, dangerous ground.

"Why all of the sudden tense? Here," Tai offered another drink, "Have another one."

She downed her drink. "You look just like him, and…" If she stood at the edge of the path looking in, she could get away without harm. "Any time we've interacted, the memories flood back and it's just…let's just say it's not good."

Tai frowned. "Of the guy that looks like me? What do you remember? Maybe I can help sort out what your brain is trying to say." Sora scoffed at his attempt to help while he raised a hand trying again. "Hold on, now. Memories aren't always reliable. Sometimes our brain twists what it remembers into clues to represent what you really saw. Sometimes you need someone else from the outside to look in with fresh eyes."

"Because you're better than Dr. Kido?" she rejected the idea, eating the last bit of cookie.

He turned towards her careful to keep his balance. Both of the tree branches they individually sat on were wide and close enough to make sitting on them comfortable. "Because I'm a friend that wants to help. We are friends, aren't we?"

There was something almost vulnerable the way he asked his question that made Sora's heart melt. Just earlier this morning she was frightened at even hearing his name. And now, sitting next to him observing his personality, he didn't seem like the person her brain was saying he could be. This served as more proof that her gut feeling earlier in the bedroom was correct - Sora's neighbor had no idea the tragedy she experienced and really wasn't trying to cause her more psychological harm.

Perhaps tip-toeing over the edge for a few minutes wouldn't be so bad?

"I'm not sure yet," She smirked placing a finger on her chin looking up towards the sky. "I've yet to see the gentleman side of you and this fairy tale game is boring. Why would I want to be friends with someone who can't keep his word?"

"We were playing a 'game'?" Tai smirked with curiosity growing.

" _Were_ we playing one? Because if so, yours was bad," she laughed. "I don't think a gentleman stuffs his face with cookies and sprays her with it too."

"What?" Tai feigned a hurt look with a grin.

This was the opening he was waiting for to help jog her memory!

He placed a hand to his chest, his fingers pushing against it arching the back of his hand as he proclaimed, " _Nooooo_. I haven't started yet. But since you're begging to experience it," Tai scooted right next to her and laid an arm around her shoulders whispering into her ear, "get ready for a whirlwind."

Sora's cheeks reddened, slightly recoiling from Tai touching her and their proximity to each other. "Taichi, maybe this isn't a good -"

"Sshh," Tai cut in. "Think of this as a science experiment. You want to prove me wrong that fairy tales and gentlemen don't exist? Okay, let's prove me wrong. We're going to pretend we're on a date. The minute your feelings sway to any fleeting thought of romance: That's a possible start to a fairy tale." He flashed a grin. "And don't worry, as a gentleman, I won't do anything you're not comfortable with."

She scanned the starry night debating to step back into the safety zone from the edge. "I don't know -"

"Let's make a pact," Tai held up his pinky as urgency flashed in his expression hidden behind a joyful countenance. "No more alcohol. We need to remember tonight under this grand, majestic tree. If you win, we won't speak of this again." He lowered his voice to above a whisper leaning in close. "But if I win, you have to open yourself up to the possibility that love and romance is very much real and alive."

She eyed Tai's pinky. There was something familiar about this gesture. Oh, what the hell. Instead of tip-toeing, she jumped full passed the edge. Sora wrapped her pinky around his. "You're going down, Yagami."

Tai had to catch himself before saying her real last name. He couldn't afford a slip up after coming this close. "It's you that's gonna fall hard for me."

* * *

Tai internally moaned and looked away nervous on deciding his next move. It wasn't easy making it up in his head than it was going by a plan. He was sure sitting on this tree, that was similar to the one at home where they spent time together, would help jog something, especially with their pinky promise, but nothing was biting. What could he do next and still make it look like he had it all planned out?

He did promise her a whirlwind...

Tai's confidence returned and a wistful smile was shown. "Once upon a time -"

"What is this? Story time?" Sora sighed resting her head against the tree rolling her eyes. Not even a minute passed by and nothing magical by her standards happened.

Tai's arm was still draped over Sora's shoulders, but at this comment he slightly pulled away. "Are you that scared to give this a shot?"

"No -"

"Good!" he cleared his throat loudly and drawn out to lighten the mood. "Once upon a time -"

Tai instantly turned to Sora again to make sure she was listening. A nervous smile showed from her. Tai laughed and leaned next to her again resting his arm around her shoulders once more and continued the story.

"There was this boy. He had a good friend, a girl, that he always hung with. He didn't care what others were saying that it was weird a girl wanted to do boy stuff, like play sports and climb trees and wear boyish clothing. This was what made her happy, and he admired that she felt comfortable in her own skin. It wasn't long before they became best friends.

"What she didn't realize was that she changed the boy. Before, he always charged into things without thinking, and sometimes spoke without thinking. Growing up together, he learned from her to watch other's body language; to be slow to speak and with making decisions."

"How did he change her?" Sora earnestly asked.

There it was. Curiosity. It spilled from her expression as she pursed her lips awaiting his response. It was one of her habits when she eagerly awaited an answer. His Sora was still there deep down inside.

He chuckled. "I'm not sure if he changed her in anyway. She always kept her thoughts to herself. At least for him, she was his world, and he'd do anything to protect her. He made her a pinky promise under a tree, much similar to this tree that witnessed many secrets and promises as they grew, that he'd always protect her."

" _Pffht!_ Pinky promises," she mocked. "That's so lame. You used that before with me earlier. What is it with you and pinky promises?"

"Romance isn't always about words," he raised a brow with a playful grin. "Sure, to you, it's a kiddy thing, but romance is also about the littlest gestures." He held up his pinky from his left hand. "The pinky is one of the weakest finger on the hand. Unless it has help from his other buddies, it can't do much. But when it links with another pinky," he scooped her pinky from her left hand, "it creates the strongest bond than the other fingers could never achieve. That's how love grows; it learns taking risks are worth it and leaning on each other for support is craved."

He leaned closer to her ear and whispered. "Follow me."

"Where?" she whispered back, her heart fluttering from his close proximity and earlier speech.

His lopsided grin showed while he tugged on her pinky with persistence. She grinned biting her bottom lip and followed.

Tai climbed down the tree with ease, Sora following behind. When they were both on the ground, he took his shoes and socks off and motioned to her, "Take yours off too."

"But-"

"Nuh-uh. This is an experiment, remember?"

She did what she was told, her curiosity peaked.

Barefoot, Tai walked to her and held her in his arms as if they were going to dance. "Close your eyes. Allow your senses to take over." He took a deep breath in and asked in a gentle tone, "Smell that?"

He could feel her limbs stiffen, as if fighting with her thoughts, but he continued by resting his cheek on top of her head, his eyes remaining closed. "Smells of honey suckles nearby."

He could hear her take a long sniff.

"Hear that?" He waited for her to respond.

"Crickets," she smiled after closing her eyes to allow her senses to heighten giving in to his suggestion. Her guarded walls were coming down.

"Yes. Do you feel that?" He whispered again.

"No," she followed suit whispering as a blush crept up her neck in the moonlight.

"The grass between your toes. The cool, moist dirt on the soles of your feet," he mentioned as he wiggled his toes burying them into the dirt. "The warm starlight above. The chill in the air." Tai held her tight and paused. "A man holding you in his warm arms wanting to dance with you." He rested his forehead on hers taking in a deep breath and led her in a slow dance.

If anyone from the sidelines were told what they were witnessing was a science experiment, they would disagree wholeheartedly. Here Tai held his girlfriend in his arms slow dancing and humming in her ear, secretly begging she'd wake up, but still nothing indicated she remembered anything. Only traces of her personality showed. He did count it a win though that he managed to gain some trust after today's fiasco - Especially since her subconscious, or Chicanemon planting false memories in her head with her last reset (he wasn't sure which), placed him as a possible bad guy in her head.

"Want to hear the rest of the story?" He grinned, the tip of his nose touching hers still leading her in their dance. His last Hail Mary were the figurines in his pocket. If this didn't work, he wasn't sure what else he could do for now.

"Sure," her soft answer was barely a whisper with a shy smile.

Tai lifted his head to the sky thinking of the best way to crypticly speak of the past to jog a memory. Any memory. If this didn't work, he'd have to switch tactics and join his sister in jogging his other friend's minds, even find Agumon and the others. It wasn't hard to jog her memory the other times before, but then again he was always loud and direct too. What changed to make it harder?

It had to be the so-called anxiety medication that was repressing her memories. And if that was the case, why target solely Sora and not all of them? Because this sick Digimon was sadistic, that's why. She was the bearer of the Crest of Love. What better way to have fun than to keep her away from Tai, make her go to therapy to push abusive thoughts that love wasn't real (who knows what else), and make her believe that he looked similar to whatever guy caused her harm in the past.

So far, this 'science experiment' was a success by the alcohol being a factor in loosening Sora to letting her be more open-minded. Tai fished out both figurines of Biyomon and Agumon from his pocket. Holding one in each hand, he tried to think of how to tie these into the fairy tale story.

"One day, the boy wanted to help the girl see that her low self-esteem, which she believed to have kept well-hidden, blinded her from seeing how loved she was by her friends, and own mother, but even more by him. He knew she always enjoyed birds and that she secretly like the color pink. So he made this little bird for her." Tai lowered his head handing her the Biyomon figurine as his other hand was used to close her fingers tightly around it. "He met her under their usual tree the next day and gave her the present trying to tell her how he felt. He managed to convey to her everything she craved and needed to hear, except he didn't have the courage to say how much he loved her.

"As he was walking away afraid to say how he felt inside, she stopped him and gave him a dinosaur. She asked a friend to make it for her, since the only thing she was good at making from scratch was food," he let out a side chuckle.

He could swear he thought he noticed Sora discreetly wiping her eyes as she giggled as well, but didn't let that distract him from finishing his story. Was this working?

"She told him that this dinosaur was to help him be brave with the decisions he made in the future and that anytime he had doubts that this little guy," he wiggled the Agumon figurine with two fingers, "would always help him make the right decisions."

He paused staring at the faux Agumon. She wasn't saying anything and he was out of ideas without being straightforward. This wasn't fair. This wasn't freaking fair!

"Then what?" Sora asked sincerely wanting Tai to finish the story.

When she asked, it seemed as if she was trying to recall something, shaking her head as if to make sense of what she was recalling, while studying the faux Biyomon. It was working! There was one more idea he had and it was worth it. He had to believe it would work!

He stuffed the Agumon figurine in his pocket, cupped her chin and whispered, praying he was making the right choice. "Then without saying a word he kissed her."

And that's just what he did.

* * *

_What in holy Sam was this man doing! How dare he steal a kiss! This fairy tale game has gone on long enough. This is what happens when fire is played with. False hope of life, love and laughter are planted in your head -_

A sudden sharp pain felt as if something was stabbing her mind. Sora pushed him away holding her head as she winced in pain. The memories were flooding back. The horrible memories of being chased by the monster and all of her friends dying. Of the mystery man that looked like Taichi that grabbed her in the cave and kissed her -

Her heartbeat quickened.

_My mind is playing tricks again. We've never met before. I'm remembering the 'kiss' because he kissed me just now. And as_ _crazy as it is, I've seen this bird before, but she was bigger. Much bigger and alive! What's the Crest of Love? Why is my heart beating like crazy? My body is tingling like everything I'm seeing in my head really happened. Wait..._

Sora looked up to Taichi, her eyes widened in confusion dropping the faux Biyomon to the ground. She took a step back from Taichi as, out of concern, he tried to reach out to her.

_I think it all really did happen! I think Taichi was there, but he was trying to save me! He had a crystal and we somehow both hurt the monster and...Were we in a relationship in the past? That would explain his erratic behavior from before, why this kiss felt familiar, and this flood of memories! Hold on. Taichi isn't his real name. And why does Takenouchi sound familiar?_

With a shaky breath, she asked daring not to go above a whisper, touching her lips with a few fingertips, as the sensation of when their lips touched lingered. "Do I have a last name?"

He was held his breath, and nodded his head.

In the same mannerism, she continued. "Taichi Yagami isn't you're real name, is it?"

He glanced to the side and then locked eyes to hers shaking head.

"Who are you to me?" Sora hesitantly came close to Taichi searching his eyes.

He held the sides of her cheeks in his hands resting his forehead on hers with a sigh of relief, matching her whisper. "Baby, you're Sora Takenouchi. I'm you're boyfriend, Tai Kamiya, and there's a high chance I'm going to be reset because your 'god' may be listening. I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner, but...I found you. I said I will always find you."

He hooked her pinky in the air. "Tell me this feels familiar? Because I'm feeling he's about to reset me and I'm counting on you to find that loophole I gave you to bring me back after it happens and we can end this stupid war. If you can't bring me back, go find Kari and help her bring Izzy back."

"Wait. What? Boyfriend? Loophole?"

This couldn't be true, could it? Tai Kamiya, not Taichi Yagami, was her boyfriend? Everything else she knew, Dr. Kido, this street, her life here, was all a lie and she wasn't crazy? Tai couldn't be her boyfriend. There was no way. It was decided by Dr. Kido that she was supposed to reproduce with Yamato Ishida. Their genes were the strongest matched together of all the males that lived on this street to produce the healthiest offspring to multiply the planet. That was why Yamato was visiting her today, besides to guard her from Taichi showing up again, but to let her know and that whenever she was ready they could begin.

She held off on giving an answer, because she hoped deep down inside the book "The Forbidden Red String of Fate" was wrong and love did exist. That romance was alive and well and flourished.

Memories came of she and Tai climbing an oak tree in a little town called...was it called Odaiba? Yes! Odaiba! They would climb the tree and spill their secrets to each other! They would tell the other how their day went and at times stay silent watching the clouds! Tai! Tai Kamiya!

Crying, she kissed Tai hugging him tight, begging with all her might that his flickering body was coming from her imagination.

She whispered into his ear with urgency before he disappeared, "I remember! Don't go too far away, Tai Kamiya! This is _your_ fairy tale story and I'm going to be the independent heroine that saves the prince tonight."

A teardrop fell down Tai's left cheek as they kissed while he faded away. "A woman after my own heart."

* * *

Sora Takenouchi acted quickly picking up her Biyomon figurine. Where did he find this? When this was all over she was sure Biyomon would love to have it. She scanned her area to see if anyone was still up before she acted.

Crap.

That looked like Matt - No, wait - Yamato. That was Yamato spying on her peeking through his living room blinds. How much did he see? This wasn't good. Yamato was waiting on Sora to give her consent to create offspring and replenish the planet. It wasn't like they were in a relationship. In Dr. Kido and Yamato's mindset, it was purely for population purposes, but at the same time they were counting on Sora to not become 'crazy'. She was determined to bring Tai back tonight, come hell or high water, and if it took sneaking out of her house and into Tai's to make it happen, then so be it.

She gave a small wave, dropping the Biyomon figurine to the ground, and walked towards her front door attempting to act cool and collect. Pretending to search for her keys in her pocket she casually looked back seeing Yamato's houselights off. That was a good sign. Hopefully.

In a mad dash, she raced towards Tai's house, swooping the Biyomon figurine from the ground.

_Run, run, run! Don't breathe so loud! Run quietly! Stay on the grass to mask your sounds! Hide in the shadows! Hurry, hurry!_

She bit her lower lip, and quietly knocked on Taichi's front door. Did he hear it? Was it too soft that he didn't hear it? Was it too loud that others heard her? She softly knocked again. Every second waiting was one second too long. He mentioned to go to Kari if she couldn't reach him. That must mean that Kari was free too. This was a mistake. She should go to her instead.

The front door opened!

There stood Taichi Yagami with his swollen right eye confused with seeing her on his front porch at this time of night. Ah, that's right. To him, this would be the first time he'd meet her. With a high possibility of being caught by Yamato heading to her house to make sure she was fine, there was no time to gently break the news to him like it was done to her. Quick and easy was her plan.

"Hi!" she greeted keeping her voice low. "I realize this is an odd time of the night to greet my neighbors, but blame it on insomnia. I'm Sora." She took it upon herself to shake his hand as he appeared weirded out. "Do me a favor? Tomorrow when you vlog your soccer tips, talk about something else other than buying soccer shoes? I mean, how many times do you need to re-tape your video?"

"What do you mean re-tape? How did you know what -"

"Listen, guy, I used to play soccer all the time when I was young," she stated pushing her way into his house and closing the door behind her while ignoring his protests. "Let me star on the vlog with you tomorrow. Two people brainstorming ideas have got to be better than one, am I right?"

"Lady," he pushed his way to the front door, "Get out of my house. I swear, what is it with having weird neighbors?"

"Wait!" She insisted reaching into his pocket and taking out his Agumon figurine. Loopholes. "You have something of mine."

"Whoa!" he quickly backed away. That was too close for comfort. Invading his personal space wasn't appreciated. "Why was that in my pocket?"

Sora grinned. "Cute little dinosaur, isn't it?" She held her Biyomon figurine up next to Agumon. "I wonder where I've seen them before?"

Taichi's brows furrowed struggling with his thoughts. "Have I seen you before?"

"Well," she placed both figurines on his coffee table, "time for me to hit the hay. I'm gonna," she awkwardly pointed to the front door, "head home now. So...that's it."

There was an awkward stance between the two: Sora waiting at the closed front door expecting Taichi to remember, while Taichi lost in his thoughts fighting an on coming headache. This was taking too long and the back and forth "when will they remember" was wearing thin on Sora's nerves.

She let out a curt sigh, marched over to the tv stand where she noticed a scrap piece of paper and pen and wrote a question. They were only going to win this if she played it smart.

"Why aren't you leaving?" The annoyance in Taichi's voice grew as he grabbed the paper she handed him. It read:

_**"What's my last name?"** _

The confusion in his facial expression grew as he eyed the question, then to Sora. She took the paper back and wrote another question:

_**"What's the dinosaur's name?"** _

Taichi studied the figurines. Helping Taichi would be easier than it was for him helping her because he wasn't the one taking medication to repress her memories disguised as anti-anxiety medication.

What a sick, sadistic monster.

Taichi raised a hand to cover his right eye, like he was discovering for the first time that it was swollen. The other eye that wasn't swollen met her's as he struggled on what to say next. Sora grinned and before he realized what was happening she softly kissed him.

Shocked, Taichi pulled back holding on to her shoulders studying her. His lips silently muttered his thoughts until he took hold of the pen and wrote:

_**"Takenouchi & Agumon."** _

"Atta girl," Tai Kamiya whispered with a smile and hugged her tightly.

She gave a gentle peck on his lips again speaking in a normal tone this time. "I'll see you tomorrow to vlog our soccer video after my session with Dr. Kido."

* * *

"But, wait, who do I live with again?" Takeru rested his teacup on the joining saucer at the coffee table as his brother, Yamato stood up from the couch in his grease covered overalls.

Answering this simple question was a daily battle with his little brother. With a weary, tender smile he took hold of both of their empty teacups and saucers and gave his usual answer. "With me, buddy. You live with me."

"I do?"

"Yep. It's you and me against the world. Always has been and always will be."

"Great!" Takeru released a sigh of relief accompanied with a joyful smile standing to his feet. "Thanks, big brother. Sometimes I forget our parents died...and where I live...and..." He looked to Yamato in confusion, trailing off from his statement.

When he wore this look, it reminded Yamato of the scared little three year old his brother was when it was just the two of them fending off the streets to survive. That was why Yamato needed to build this space rocket. If he could prove to the big wigs in the space program that he could use every day objects to build a space rocket with a successful launch he could sell his design and they would be set with money. If it wasn't for Dr. Kido's family taking them in and teaching him the ways of Lord Chicanemon they'd still be on the cold streets without a house. It was usually nighttime when Takeru's sudden onset of amnesia would appear. During the day, a passerby would have no clue of his nightly struggles.

"You live with me, buddy."

"I do?"

"Yep." Yamato nodded towards the upstairs bathroom. "Why don't you take a shower. It's late and we should go to bed. Tomorrow's another day to think of new ideas for your next book."

"Good idea! Night, big brother!" Takeru headed up the stairs.

Yamato smiled at his brother watching him head into the bathroom door. Even though some nights were tiring than this night, he wouldn't change it for the world. He turned to close the living room blinds until he noticed Taichi Yagami & Sora standing on her front lawn hugging.

What the hell was going on? Taichi got to her again. He swore under his breath. This man was getting worse every day. Wait a minute. Lord Chicanemon was resetting Taichi! Awesome! Sora wasn't reset, so whatever that idiot was trying to do, she wasn't affected.

Ah, she noticed him! He waved to her with a sheepish grin and observed her taking her time to reach her house. Normally, she would hurry home after an encounter with Taichi. That was odd. He should go to her now. He should go make sure she didn't need his help to calm down.

"Yamato?"

Without a second thought, Yamato spun around shutting the blinds shut. "Sup, man?"

Takeru rested his arms on the stairwell smirking. "Are you stalking Sora again?"

"What? Pfft!" He waved Takeru away turning the living room lamp off and heading up the stairs. "Get the hell out of here. I don't stalk. I protect. Aren't you supposed to be taking a shower?"

"Cool change of subject, bro."

_"Protecting!"_ Yamato pushed his brother back into the bathroom as his brother laughed teasing him about sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g.

"Relax, man," Takeru laughed it off. "Romance doesn't exist. I get you're protective over her because of the whole offspring deal, but you still can't watch her from the window."

"Something doesn't smell right, Takeru. We need to talk to Dr. Kido tomorrow. I'm worried about her."

Takeru groaned. "Aw, don't tell me you saw Taichi trying to work his magic on her again just now."

Yamato grunted in displeasure.

"Actually, you need the shower first, kid," Takeru slyly maneuvered his way out of the bathroom leaving his brother inside instead. "But before you do, I have a very important question to ask."

Yamato hesitated knowing what was coming. "What's that?"

"Who's Kari Kamiya?"

Yamato's weary smile returned and ruffled his brother's hair. "No one. A figment of your imagination." He cut his brother off before he could ask his next question. "No, you were never engaged to her, or anyone. You made her up when you were young, like an imaginary friend."

"I see," Takeru quieted. A confused and sudden scared expression appeared on his face.

Yamato hugged his brother comforting his thoughts. "With me, buddy. You live with me. You and me against the world."


	6. Take The Red Pill

"Chef Mimi!"

Chef Mimi paused rolling the pizza dough out on the kitchen counter after hearing her employer summon her, and rolled her eyes. It was too early in the morning to deal with this jerk. Usually, he didn't make a peep until close to eleven o'clock and it was eight thirty-six in the morning.

"I'm in need of your assistance. Come this instant," he barked.

She scoffed sprinkling flour on the pizza dough and the rolling pin ignoring his request.

Izzy barked again after a minute of no response, his tone raising an octave. "Walk faster, servant! I don't have all _daaay!_ "

Chef Mimi threw the rolling pin to the floor. _"I quit!_ I hate you!" She spewed racing towards him near his workstation in the living room.

Izzy's face paled. "What?"

"You heard me!"

She thrusted her face close to his, their noses barely touching, as the pent-up poison that brewed inside her from his verbal abuse these last few days came to surface. "Koushiro, I am Chef Mimi! Not 'servant', 'bag lady', 'hag', 'homeless twat', or the fifty million other things I'm called! I am a respectable chef that has earned her way to the top of my field! I have feelings too, you insufferable, pigheaded, unclean nerd, and today you're going to see what happens when you mess with me!"

"Snu–Snuggles," Izzy stammered trying his best to control his mixed emotions from showing.

He quickly hid his shaking hands behind his back and fought his tears. He hated that he had to keep with the charade of acting as a heartless, controlling employer until a solution was found. It was getting harder as each day passed watching the emotional pain he was causing her.

One thing was for sure, Izzy needed to test his theory. If all went correctly, the barrier would contain them inside, block all noise escaping, and make them invisible to the outside world - all with a few keystrokes.

He wasn't going to allow Chef Mimi to leave this house, and if he knew his wife well, she was about to storm outside after she gave him a piece of her mind. Chicanemon wasn't going to win this small battle and create another 'Tai chasing Sora' fiasco.

Not today, not ever.

But he slipped. 'Koushiro' never showed affection and a possible reset was in his near future. His nickname for Mimi was Snuggles because of how affectionate she was with him. How was he going to fix his blunder and get her to step into the protective barrier he created? If his plan worked, his wife would come back to him in a few minutes and the two would gather everyone else to finish this war today.

Chef Mimi took a step back holding her head with one head searching her thoughts confused. "Snuggles? Why does that sound…"

Izzy took in a deep breath, firmly took hold of her free hand, and yanked her in front of his computer. His fingers typed a code on the keyboard as fast as lightning, and a sheer, watery bubble formed from the floor up meeting at the ceiling creating a protective barrier. The size was enough to comfortably fit all eight digidestined plus their partners. This was the moment of truth he was waiting for; what they were all waiting for.

* * *

Chef Mimi stood wide-eyed, her mouth hanging slightly opened trying to wrap her mind around what she witnessed. When she felt Izzy step towards her she scrambled to run away in terror, but the watery protective barrier prevented her escape and bounced her back an inch.

"Koushiro!" Chef Mimi demanded. "I don't even want to know why you're doing this, but if you let me go this instant I won't tell Lord Chicanemon anything."

"Tell me why Snuggles sounds familiar," Izzy ignored her empty threat. "Do you remember a wedding at a botanical garden?"

"A what?"

"All of us were there. You insisted we 'just simply had to get married there' and Palmon agreed."

"Whoa, whoa," Chef Mimi was trembling holding her head as her back pressed against the barrier. "Are you insinuating we're married? Are you nuts? What's a Palmon?"

"Mimi – "

_"I'm Chef Mimi!"_

"Yes, but first and foremost, my wife and," his eyes lowered to her stomach and the next words came out in a gentle tone, "a mother."

"You think you're so slick! No, I'm…" Chef Mimi's voice trailed off while she held her head trying to piece the fragmented memories together that were quickly surfacing.

Izzy took his left index finger and very gently wiped away a rolling tear from her cheek. He leaned in close. "Tell me why Snuggles sounds familiar. Who is Snuggles?"

Her bottom lip quivered, overwhelmed with the possibility that all she knew wasn't real and her nightmares, or what she considered nightmares, were actually memories her subconscious tried showing her every night. Her eyes trailed down to her stomach and gasped. She looked pregnant! By how many months? Five? Six?

"Four months," Chef Mimi let out a small laugh of disbelief.

"To be more precise," Izzy corrected with a blush while placing a hand on her stomach hoping to feel his child move, "Four months and fifteen days. You were getting annoyed that your clothes weren't fitting anymore before we got the call from Tai about Chicanemon. Mimi," Izzy asked again with a desperate plea, "Who is Snuggles?"

After a few seconds of hesitation, she threw her arms around Izzy's neck hugging him tight crying full force. "Me! I'm Snuggles."

Izzy mimicked the same reaction squeezing her tight. He had a hard time asking his question through his sobs. "And what's your real name?"

"I'm Mimi Tachikawa. No, wait…I'm Mimi Izumi, your wife."

"Mimi…"

Before Izzy knew it, a muffled, squeaky apology was released in between his sobs of how sorry he was for all the names he called her while trapped here, along with the reasoning of why it had to be. A warm, soft hand cupped one of his cheeks surprising him amid his rambling. Mimi sniffed backed her tears smiling, pulling back to face him, but still holding on.

"Cuddle Bear, it's ok. I think I understand why everything happened the way it did. The important thing is we're ok. Let's get everyone else and end this today."

"Can we come out now, Cuddle Bear?" Sounds of snickering could be heard coming from under the computer workstation.

Mimi gasped with joy clapping her hands recognizing Palmon's voice and dropped to her hands and knees crawling to the desk. She pulled Palmon out from underneath and gave her a tight hug as the rest of the Digimon piled out.

Late last night, Izzy and Kari broke the lock where their Digimon partners where trapped and smuggled them into Koushiro's home. Thanks to Izzy demanding Chef Mimi to create a feast, there was plenty of food for everyone to digivolve eventually into their rookie forms. For the rest of the night, Izzy stayed up working on code to create the protective barrier.

"Look! Izzy's blushing!" Gomamon laughed.

"Aww, don't be shy, Izzy!" Tentomon said. A sly tone could be heard as he finished with, "I think it's manly that you let her call you Cuddle Bear."

Izzy groaned. They were all going to tell their friends of his pet name regardless if he would ask not to.

Agumon tugged on Izzy's pants. "Izzy?"

"Yes?"

"I'm hungry. And where's Tai?"

Mimi chuckled and tickled the dinosaur digimon under his chin as Izzy answered. "We're getting him right now. Nobody leaves this circle under any circumstances. Understood?"

"Yes!" Everyone responded.

* * *

"Takeru! Yamato!" Kari waved their way opening her front door.

She noticed them through her living room window passing by, possibly heading to Dr. Jou's office. Sora was already at the office for her daily therapy sessions as usual, and she could guess Yamato would head there to see if Sora gave her consent, but why Takeru as well?

His normal routine was to sit in his room all morning trying to write his next novel, take a walk around the block by lunchtime, and then return to his room to work on the novel again. It was closer to nine in the morning. Something had to of happened last night to break his routine.

With a paper plate of cookies in hand, she rushed out to greet them on the sidewalk stopping in front of Sora's house. "Good morning! I made snickerdoodles this morning for my kiddos. Would you two like some as well?"

"I don't know. Are they any better than Chef Mimi's?" Takeru winked reaching for two of them.

Kari blushed. What she wouldn't give to hold her fiancé. "This is her recipe. Anything from her is amazing."

Yamato grabbed a cookie and waved goodbye continuing his walk. "Cool. Thanks."

"I'll be there soon, big brother!" Takeru said waving goodbye. Eating the first cookie he asked Kari with a curious smile, "Aren't you teaching a class? I'm not a teacher, but I'm pretty sure leaving five year olds unsupervised isn't a smart thing to do."

She already had an answer prepared and responded in the next beat. "I had them all go down for their naps early today. I'm not sure why they were cranky this morning."

"Really? This early? That's odd."

"Tell me about it." She took a bite out of a cookie as well. "Say, did your brother give you a gift from me?"

"A gift? Nope."

"Oh…"

A mischievous smile appeared. "That's sweet. We barely know each other and I'm given a gift. What was it?"

She nervously laughed. "It wasn't anything special, really. Yesterday my class made small 'friendly' monsters out of clay – "

Before she could finish her sentence, Takeru's personality completely changed. His face contorted into a menacing manner. Taking hold of Kari's shirt with balled fists, he forcefully yanked her towards him with a snarl. "Who are you!"

Kari gasped in fear dropping the plate of cookies. She never saw this side of him before and chills ran down her spine. Every day she looked forward to his afternoon walks because it was the only way she could interact with him. She thought of making the Digimon clay figurines only after speaking with him yesterday, or she'd of made sure to give Takeru his miniature version of Patamon. He had to of been reset with his personality altered to be violent when suspicious.

_"Answer me, traitor!_ My brother would've given me the gift if it was harmless! Are you for, or against, Lord Chicanemon?"

_"Hey!"_ Tai swiftly pushed Takeru away. "Get off her!" He was setting up his video camera on his front lawn to mimic his daily routine until Sora came when he saw the confrontation.

Takeru bounced back in the next beat, and now the two were nose-to-nose with Takeru snarling like a wild animal. "That's not Hikari, pompous ass! The real Hikari wouldn't leave her class unattended and put them all down for a nap so early. She needs a reset!"

"I don't know what you were taught," Tai balled his hands into fists by his sides, "but where I come from men never treat a woman like that, regardless that a reset is needed or not!"

"No, where you come from, men take things into their own hands and do with women as they please, hypocrite!"

Before Tai could lash back, both Takeru's and Tai's attention was stolen by Mimi opening a front window.

"Good morning, friends!" She greeted with a sweet smile. "I think I outdid myself with making too much breakfast. Koushiro gave me a good verbal lashing for wasting ingredients, but I convinced him to allow whoever wanted to share with me to come over. The more the merrier, I always say!"

Takeru silently observed Mimi with caution. "Koushiro doesn't allow anyone near him. Why should I trust you?"

A nearby window opened and Izzy stuck his head out to answer. "What a disrespectful prick. Because _I_ gave her permission. That's why. It's better than having her go on about 'it's a shame to throw all this food out'," he attempted to mock Mimi's voice. "Please, put me out of my misery. Take enough food home for you and Yamato and then get the hell off my property."

And with that, Izzy slammed his window shut.

Takeru's countenance changed back to a cheerful smile walking towards Izzy's home. "Sounds good!"

Mimi's cheerful smile appeared as she went to open the front door leaving her window open.

Before he stepped on the porch, Takeru turned back to Kari, the snarl returning. "I'm coming back for you. And Taichi, get back to your routine."

* * *

Kari and Tai slowly gave each other a side hug watching Takeru enter the doorway in complete shock of the mood swings. Tai already experienced Takeru having an icy side to him when he was stopped at Sora's doorway yesterday, but he never expected violent mood swings and especially towards his sister. Hearing Kari hyperventilate snapped him from his thoughts.

"Sshhh, it's okay. It's okay," Tai held her tight so she could calm down. "He's gone and I'm here."

It took several minutes to calm her shaking body and the hyperventilating to cease. Even after the episode, Kari didn't want to let go. She was tired of everything and for once, without words, she needed to feel her brother's support.

"Hey, you two. Everything alright?" Mimi called from her window again.

"Yeah, yeah, Lady," Tai ignored her concentrating on calming his sister and spoke as 'Taichi'. "We're fine and don't want any of your stinking food."

"Didn't you want it before?"

He rolled his eyes trying to think of what else Taichi would say. "I'll bring some for Hikari. She has to get back to her classroom."

What was that? Was Chef Mimi holding a sign up? Tai motioned to Kari to look her way. They both squinted to read what it said:

_**I'm Mimi Izumi!** _

_**Takeru is back to being TK.** _

_**He's safe with us.** _

_**I'm going to raise my hand in the air and shout "All Hail Lord Chicanemon!"** _

_**Do the same then get your butts in here.** _

_**Izzy has a plan!** _

Tai and Kari silently took in a deep breath and released it in relief. This meant six out of eight of them were back to normal, but it still left Tai questioning where were their Digimon friends?

"Hurry before it gets cold. I'm so thankful for Lord Chicanemon to give me this gift to cook for others. All Hail Lord Chicanemon!" Mimi saluted the air.

Tai's stomach turned knowing this needed to be done to avoid another reset. Fighting to swallow the bit of vomit that came up he followed suit with his sister. "Hail Lord Chicanemon!"

And with that, he held tight to his sister's hand as they ran into the safety of Izzy's home.

* * *

"But I don't understand why there's hesitation," Dr. Kido released a forceful breath from aggravation. Yamato sat on the same couch as Sora and each pressed themselves as close to the opposite ends as possible. "Yesterday you gave the impression that you were coming onboard with the idea, and today you're questioning my intentions."

"I think I was misunderstood," Sora tried to rectify. "Yesterday I did say I would give it some thought. That doesn't necessarily mean I gave total consent."

Matt rested an elbow on the arm of his side of the couch. "To be fair, Dr. Kido, she did say that."

"I'm sorry, but," Sora turned to Yamato, "why are you here? Isn't this supposed to be my private therapy session?" She then turned back to Dr. Kido. "I haven't given my consent for him to sit here with me."

Dr. Kido folded his arms over his chest. "Your consent is officially overruled from this moment on."

"Overruled? Like hell it is!" She protested.

He then adjusted his glasses with a firm frown growing. "We're speaking about saving the human race and your doubts are resurfacing. Why aren't you reading the Forbidden Red String of Fate?"

"I've been reading it," she insisted wiping her clammy hands on her thighs. She couldn't wait to escape back to Tai to help form a plan on how to save the others. "Everything is making sense."

"But?"

"But...why me?"

Dr. Kido shook his head not expecting her question. "Hold on. You dare question Lord Chicanemon's will?"

"No!" Sora insisted waving her hands in the air. The last thing she needed was a reset because they both caught on. She did the last thing she could think of to hinder any more suspicion. "Not at all! All Hail Lord Chicanemon!"

As if it was an automatic response, Dr. Kido and Yamato simultaneously raised one hand in the air each. "Hail Lord Chicanemon!"

Silence hung in the air. Dr. Kido stared intensely at Sora awaiting a further explanation.

Yamato hung his head, a few fingers twitching on his right hand that was resting on the couch arm. He spoke to Sora hesitantly.

"If you don't tell him, I will."

Sora's heart caught in her throat. She worried about Yamato watching Tai and her yesterday. Could he have seen more than she thought? She couldn't deny she was with Tai, but she could fib what was spoken. She shook her head trying to think of something to say on the spot.

"Taichi was trying to convince me that he wasn't a bad guy."

"Is that why you hugged him?" Yamato slightly turned his head to her, but his eyes remained downcast. "Because he convinced you he 'wasn't a bad guy'?"

"Well, I-I guess. He's actually sort of sweet once you get to know him."

"Sweet?" Yamato scoffed. "He's a convicted killer, Sora! Sentenced to a life of repetitive amnesia each day ordered by Lord Chicanemon and you think he's sweet?" He shook his head and turned his body to face her, folding a leg on the couch, and spoke with earnest. "That's how he lured his victims before his sentencing; He acts as the knight in shining armor then rapes and kills them. And I don't... _We_ ," he glanced at Dr. Kido, "don't want to take chances."

"Taichi raped and killed women?" She couldn't believe this was the background Chicanemon gave Tai. Unbelievable. It made sense why they all attempted to keep Tai secluded on his property. Even 'Taichi' constantly told people to 'get off his porch', despite his amnesia.

"And men," Dr. Kido added. "The only reason Lord Chicanemon has not destroyed that pathetic excuse for a human is because he has something that belongs to him. You wouldn't happen to know where it is, would you Sora?"

The crystal! That evil Digimon was looking for the crystal they were all searching for before this all started! She remembered it merging with Tai's digivice, but had no clue where any of their digivices or Digimon friends were.

"No."

At least it was half true.

_"LIES!"_ screamed Dr. Kido.

Sora and Yamato jumped. Dr. Kido closed his eyes willing himself to calm his breathing. He asked Lord Chicanemon for a glass of water and one formed in his hand. After drinking the water, he held the glass with both hands in his lap, his anger controlled.

"I'm no fool, Sora. I'm fully aware you're in need of a reset."

Yamato glanced at Sora then asked Dr. Kido. "You think so? Everyone in this room is a firm believer in Lord Chicanemon, but I admit, it's a little overwhelming having the fate of the world rest on solely us."

Dr. Kido raised a hand in mid-air with authority. "Enough!" Silence reigned once more. "I admire how well you've attempted to hide your feelings for her, but you must squash them this instant. Lord Chicanemon selecting you to mate with her is an honor, not a hookup session, and trying to gain her trust by mimicking her thoughts -"

Yamato's face turned red with embarrassment. "I'm not hiding feelings -"

_"SHUT UP!"_ Dr. Kido slammed the glass he was holding to the floor. The shards flickered away, like a glitch. "With the authority given to me from Lord Chicanemon, I am denouncing your claim to Sora and _I_ take over the role to mate with her."

Immediately, Sora stood to her feet. "No one is touching me!"

"Sit down!" Dr. Kido ordered.

"I'm not consenting to this!" She screamed. "Lord Chicanemon doesn't force his will on others and I'm not ready for this!"

Dr. Kido stood matching her stance. "Either you sit and obey His will, or I'll make you with the reset. Either way, this is happening."

Yamato tried separating the two. "Can we take a second to step back? She's clearly overwhelmed."

Dr. Kido landed a severe punch to Yamato's stomach resulting in him hunched over struggling for air. While Yamato dry heaved holding his stomach, Dr. Kido opened the office closet, dumped him inside, and locked the door leaving the key in the lock.

Sora stood frozen in horror holding both hands over her mouth. She wanted to scream and run for help, but what good would that do? Dr. Kido was basically Chicanemon's right-hand man in this alternate universe. One request from him, and she'd be reset allowing Dr. Kido to do whatever he saw fit with her for the better of mankind. She needed to find a way to knock him unconscious to rescue Yamato and escape.

"I believe I understand why there's hesitation on your part," Dr. Kido cautiously walked towards Sora with his hands held mid-air. "The concept of love being a pseudo concoction of hormones is still ludicrous to you."

Yamato weakly banged on the closet door faintly screaming to be released. Spurts of coughing, and groans from the pain that came from it could be heard intermittently. His constant request to Chicanemon to be released were denied.

"I'm your doctor, Sora. I know what's best for you. You're still recovering from your traumatic experience and a lot of things remain fuzzy to you. I get it. I see why this is overwhelming and I begged Lord Chicanemon to allow more time for your healing before asking for your sacrifice."

Sounds of Yamato kicking the door became stronger. Sora took steps backwards reaching behind her for anything that felt strong enough to knock Dr. Kido out with one swing.

"Yamato has the strongest genes of all the males for reproduction, but I'm second in line. With my brains and your temperament, we'd create the perfect race."

Second in line? This may buy her some time. "Dr. Kido, I said I would consider it. I never said no. And with all due respect, and a believer in our Lord Chicanemon, His top choice was with Yamato due to his strongest genes. I'd much rather fulfill His original desire - when I'm ready, that is."

By this time, Dr. Kido cornered Sora next to a file cabinet and an end table. He scowled. "What is it about me that puts you off? That I shoved him in a closet, or that I can get my way no matter what?"

Tears rolled down Sora's face out of fear. There was nothing behind her to grab and the feeling of being helpless was sickening. The last thing she could think of was to play along and throw a cheap shot when least expected.

"Okay," she swallowed hard. "I'll do it. I'll save the world with you."

"But?" he asked sensing there was more to it.

"But please let Yamato go."

Dr. Kido's face softened. He hugged her ignoring when her body stiffened to his touch. "I'm not a bad person, Sora. His unresolved feelings for you caused this result. He's now a new patient of mine and I will deal with him shortly. I'll let him go after our session is over."

She forced herself to hug back, her arms shaking as she moved to do so. "I'm scared."

"I admit, I'm scared myself," he chuckled. "But we can make it pleasurable. It doesn't have to be robotic."

"Sora, don't do it!" Yamato screamed. "Don't force yourself to do it! Let me out of here!"

The closet door began to splinter as Yamato continued to bang against it. She couldn't let Dr. Kido see that. If Yamato could break out it would make things easier. She caught Dr. Kido as he was turning to examine the cracking noise and kissed him. It was a quick kiss, but enough to hold his attention.

"Now. I want to do this now before I lose my nerve," she insisted.

A soft, small smile formed as he gazed into her eyes. "I know this is hormones, but that kiss was amazing. Are you absolutely positive you're ready?"

The door splintered again with Yamato screaming with all his strength.

Sora tightly pressed herself against his body giving a deeper kiss as her answer to distract him again from Yamato. Her hands slowly drifted down towards his butt and gave a firm squeeze causing him to moan with pleasure.

This time Yamato managed to break a hole with a foot. He reached with his hand to unlock the closet door from the outside as Dr. Kido instantly pushed Sora away, panting, to examine the noise. Sora kicked Dr. Kido between his legs. Freed, Yamato rushed out almost stumbling onto Sora while she gave him a hug urging him to follow her.

"Just a sec," Yamato growled as he stood over Dr. Kido's body that laid curled on the floor wheezing from nausea and pain.

With a swift kick to the doctor's abdomen, he took hold of Sora's hand. "We can go now."

* * *

"I need...a second...to breathe..." Yamato hunched over, resting his hands on his legs, trying to catch his breath as Sora and he hid by the side of his house.

There were six houses, three houses on each side of the street, and every house they ran to was empty. From left to right, on the side of the street they were on, there was Hikari's, Sora's and Yamato's/Takeru's house. Across the street, it was Dr. Kido's, Taichi's, then Koushiro's/Chef Mimi's home.

Everyone had a pattern, a routine that they must abide by, but the street was dead silent. No one was home anywhere, raising the alert that something was wrong. The last place to check was Koushiro's, but it'd be like pleading with a brick wall to let them in. He was running out of time before the doctor would gain his strength and look for them.

There was nothing past the surrounding woods. The woods acted like a protective barrier from the outside, desolate, weather treacherous world granted by Lord Chicanemon to his true believers. It wasn't making sense to Yamato why Sora wanted to try running into the woods. Did she not remember why there was no point to head that way anyway? How much did she not remember?

Dr. Kido's goal was to slowly introduce Lord Chicanemon's true intention to everyone individually to 'make a sacrifice for the better of all mankind'; eventually, everyone would be paired up with every combination possible, minus Taichi, to contribute with repopulating the planet. But one things for sure, Yamato was convinced that it wasn't going to happen by force - It went against Lord Chicanemon's teachings.

What they really needed to do was to wait it out until Dr. Kido calmed down so they could have a rational discussion. This wasn't the Dr. Kido he knew and grew up with.

"Yamato, we have to keep moving," Sora whispered peeking around the corner for any signs of Dr. Kido.

"We need to think this through," he stood breathing smoother. "Something isn't right."

She sighed hiding next to him again. "What tipped you off?"

"I'm serious."

"So am I. Why defend me?" She shook her head confused. "The only reason why you came today was to tell on me, not support me for not wanting to mate yet."

Yamato tried to respond, but his voice was caught. Was that how she saw him? A tattle-teller? "I was concerned about you, Sora. Do I need to explain who Taichi is again?"

"Well, you're..." She was raising her voice unintentionally. Catching herself, she repeated again in a harsh whisper. "Well, you're wrong about him!"

He rolled his eyes looking away. "Says the woman with amnesia. I bet you stopped taking your medication too."

"Why?" Sora stood in front of him. She took his hands in hers and sincerely asked. "Why did you defend me? Of all people, I thought you'd take Dr. Kido's side."

He frowned looking at the ground with a grunt. "Let's try Koushiro's. With any luck, Mimi will answer and we'll push our way in."

She placed a hand on his chest and gave resistance. "Wait one second. Is there anything else I need to know? Why the sudden change of heart?"

Eyes remaining downcast, he frowned in silence. Regardless of Sora's insistence, there were some things that were best left unsaid. They were running out of time and Sora acting irrational was putting them in danger. Impatient, Yamato placed a hand over her mouth to silence her. He stepped close to her speaking fast.

"I'm only going to say this once: Lord Chicanemon is a kind, fair, but jealous ruler. One thing He does not take lightly are others twisting His teachings. Dr. Kido may hear directly from our Ruler, but one thing Lord Chicanemon does not do is force his ways on others. I think Dr. Kido was giving way to his hormones and was beginning to develop feelings for you. That's the only reason I could think of why he would use his authority to overrule my claim to you because I..."

Yamato slowly lowered his hand from her lips. He moved her bangs from her eyes. Fingertips lightly traced the side of her face eventually resting on her cheek. He couldn't finish the rest of what he wanted to say. It was forbidden and her protection meant more to him than these unnecessary feelings.

"Matt, I know you still feel this way in real life, but I - "

"Who's Matt?" Yamato's eyebrows scrunched with concern. Was it possible that when she stopped taking her medication it also allowed her amnesia to progress? "Sora, what's my name?"

Sora hesitated, glancing at Koushiro's home. Yamato looked the same direction and saw movement! Was Takeru there? Everyone?

"I don't have much time left," Sora stated in a low, matter-of-fact tone. "Your real name is Matt Ishida. Takeru's real name is TK Takaishi."

"Stop it," Yamato ordered.

"This world isn't real, Matt. Your 'ruler' is a corrupted mega level digimon that is toying with us in a fake alternate universe until he finds the crystal."

"Sweetheart, you're not well, but I'm going to help you get better," Yamato insisted holding her shoulders. "Even if we have to jump through the barrier and survive on the outside somehow, we'll do it, but I need to find my brother first."

"I'm not your sweetheart, Matt. That was middle school. Think back to that time: BlackWarGreymon, Gabumon, the Christmas concert your band played at when a DarkTyrannomon crashed it, the control spires, our first date, when we decided it was best to stay friends -"

"Okay, okay, we dated at a middle school thing with a Gabumon," Yamato pretended to agree. "I promise I'll find a way to fix you, but really we need to go."

Before Yamato could head towards Koushiro's home, Sora fell to the ground wretching in pain as she flickered fighting a reset.

"No!" Yamato yelled a prayer to the sky. "My Lord! Please! I know she's sick, but resetting her is only putting her back to the beginning!"

A dark, heavy laugh boomed from the heavens as if to mock Yamato's pleas for help. Sora's will to fight the reset was causing a seizure to appear.

"How is she going to trust you if this keeps happening, Lord Chicanemon? Please!"

The laughter continued. A front window opened from Koushiro's home with Izzy and TK looking up to the sky. Izzy yelled at the others inside his home when he spotted Yamato, but Yamato couldn't hear what was communicated.

"Takeru! It's time to go!" Desperate, Yamato picked Sora's seizing body up and tried his best to hold her in his arms. The alarms in his head was sounding about something feeling off and it was better to keep Takeru nearby.

TK waved to his brother with urgency yelling from across the street. "Fine, but you need to get over here first!"

Without hesitation, Yamato ran up to the front porch as the front door flew open, and came to an abrupt halt. Taichi was inside and there was this...bubble? A huge bubble? Taichi did something again and brainwashed his brother! Everyone else walked outside of the bubble and were urging him to enter.

Holy crap.

That's where everyone else was hiding! This was a trap! Everyone needed a reset! Was he the only one sane?

_"I see_ youuu _!"_

Yamato swung around holding on to Sora tight to find Dr. Kido walking in the middle of the false street, that acted more as a divider between the six houses, spitting blood to the ground.

"She's not yours anymore, you insolent fool!" Dr. Kido raged as he painfully crept their way. "Give her back to me and I'll overlook your transgression as unchecked hormones with a slap on the wrist."

Sora's reset was causing her seizing to become violent the more she fought it. Yamato felt torn on what to do. He couldn't abandon his brother here, but he couldn't leave Sora behind either.

Adjusting her in his arms, Yamato pleaded to Sora, "Please stop fighting the reset. It'll make it worse. Just let go and I'll help you remember everything. I promise!"

Tai pulled TK away from the doorframe after leaving the protective barrier. There was panic in his eyes while he motioned to take Sora in his arms. "For Christ's sake, man, she's having a seizure! Bring her inside!"

"So you can rape her too?" Yamato snarled stepping back. "Takeru Ishida, get your ass outside!"

"Rape?" Tai was astounded. Was that his background story here? Was that what 'Takeru' meant from before? "She's dying! Can't you see that! If you call that a reset, you're blind! _You're killing my girlfriend!"_

"Over my dead body, she's your girlfriend!" Yamato shouted tightening his grip. The seizure was lessening. "She's _my_ mating partner! Find your own -"

Tai gave one swift punch to Yamato's face as Kari and Izzy pulled Sora away and into the safety of the protective barrier with Tai rushing after them. Before Yamato could catch his bearings, he found himself being pulled inside the house while Mimi slammed the front door shut, locking it.

Disoriented, Yamato lifted a fist in the air aiming for whoever was in front of him...only to have it blocked by TK.

"Big Brother! Big Brother, look at me!" TK ordered holding Yamato's fist, standing in front of Mimi who was holding her arms over her head in defense. "I know this is all confusing, but listen to me!"

Yamato panicked, breathing hard, seeing he almost harmed 'Chef Mimi'. "Chef Mimi? Takeru? Little brother, what did they do to you? What are you doing here?"

"You and me against the world, right?"

Yamato observed his brother with caution while Tai returned standing nearby. "Always has been and always will be."

TK looked at the protective barrier. "What if I said that inside that bubble we're fixing Sora and we have a plan to get out of here? All of us?"

"With that rapist? I'd say you're nuts!"

Dr. Kido pressed his face against a closed window with a sick, menacing grin forming. "Knock, knock, bitches."

TK dropped to the floor fighting a reset, flickering while screaming in pain. Panicking, Yamato dropped to the floor holding his brother unsure which side to pick. All his life he knew only the ways of Lord Chicanemon and today's events made him question reality.

Dr. Kido banged on the door shouting obscenities. Tai dropped to his knees next to Yamato offering to help carry TK to the protective barrier with Yamato afraid to make the wrong choice. He couldn't lose his brother, but he couldn't disappoint his Lord.

"What do I do, Takeru? I don't know what to do!"

_"Do you trust me?"_ TK screamed losing the battle against the reset.

"You know it!" Yamato cried with all his might.

**_"Get me in that bubble!"_ **

Dr. Kido smashed a window and searched for the lock to unlock it.

Desperate, Yamato turned to Tai. "Help me!"


	7. Who's Danny Brown?

"Any ideas, guys?" Tai desperately asked the group.

They all stood in the safety of the protective barrier as Tai sat on the floor with his legs crisscrossed using them as a pillow for Sora's head, while she laid unconscious on the floor. Chicanemon's power couldn't reach anyone inside, but the evil Digimon did a number on Sora's body. It would take time for her to recover - time no one had.

Yamato did the same for his brother, but since TK wasn't fighting against the reset for too long he was gaining his strength back faster. Kari sat next to him holding her fiancé's hands whispering words of encouragement.

Yamato was wary of everyone holding his brother close, especially of how Kari and his brother were speaking to each other. He was also keeping a close eye on his mating partner, Sora. As far as Yamato was concerned, as long as 'Taichi's' amnesia didn't relapse, he'd wait for the perfect moment until the three of them could escape.

One thing they all had in common was silently praying with all their might that the protective barrier would hold up for them against 'Dr. Kido'. There was an eerie calm as Dr. Kido sat on the floor, his legs crossed and the back of his hands resting on his knees in meditation, in front of the protective barrier. It was clear he intended to wait them out.

Izzy held Mimi close subconsciously placing a hand on her stomach to feel his child move. Now that his wife mentally returned, he couldn't get enough of being near their child. "This protective barrier will buy us some time until we can think of something. Dr. Kido can't see or hear us, but he can see the outline of this barrier. We're free to discuss a plan, but the amount of time we have, I'm not sure.

"I've altered the code in this alternate universe Chicanemon placed us in to create this barrier. But, I'm uncertain if he can actually create dimensions, or at least have access to them. However, I'm intrigued with this dimension because it's also digital."

"Digital?" Yamato questioned, reevaluating with sticking with the group. He was convinced they all flipped their minds.

Tai's eyes widened. "Are you saying what I'm thinking you're saying?"

"Yes," Izzy nodded. "Either Chicanemon still has us in the digital world and this is another grand illusion, or he has us all in a contained dimension. Remember, Chicanemon is a mega level Digimon that specializes in illusions and memory loss. Even his very name means 'chaos'. Either way, we're all still somehow connected to the digital world."

"Ay, ay, ay," Tentomon held his head. "This is all too much to process. I'd like to go home and take a nap, please."

Gabumon walked over to Yamato attempting to place a hand on Yamato's shoulder. "We're jumping the gun. We still need to bring Matt back to his normal self."

Yamato let out a small gasp as he swiftly scooted away from the Digimon's touch.

"Yeah," Gomamon chimed in. "And Joe's still a madman. Izzy, let me out of here. If anyone can reach him, I can."

"We tried that, remember?" Patamon warned, flying over to TK, who happily held him in his arms after Kari helped TK sit up. "He nearly broke your neck if it wasn't for Mimi snatching you back inside."

"One thing at a time then," Tai declared with half a laugh as he hugged Agumon, who was playfully poking Tai on the arm with a claw. "Since Yamato's already in here with us, let's start with him first."

"What do you mean, 'start with him first?'" Yamato asked. "Buddy," he directed to his brother snapping his fingers. "If you're feeling better we should get going…Hey!" he barked at Kari. "What are you doing? That's forbidden here!"

TK and Kari rested their foreheads together after giving a small, gentle kiss on the lips. They giggled like little kids hearing Yamato chastise them. The rest of the group snickered.

"You've all gone mad," Yamato sat with his mouth hanging open at everyone's rebellion. "Do you all not care? Lord Chicanemon saved us from the destruction of the desolated planet we live on. He gave us this home and all he asks is to abide by a few simple rules. And you!"

Anger rose as he pointed a finger at Kari. "You know he's not well! You found out about his nightly amnesia creating fantasies at night about being engaged to a 'Kari Kamiya' and you have the audacity to pretend to be her?"

"Kinda hard to pretend when it's true, future bro-in-law," Tai winked not being able to help but to tease him. "Listen, for the wedding, I'm hoping you can bring some yakisoba for me? You make the best kind - No offense, guys," Tai grinned to TK and Kari who smiled back. "It's just that this is going to be a special day and what better way to bond bro-style than with homemade yakisoba made by none other than Matt Ishida?"

"Yakisoba noodles!" Agumon cried with joy rubbing his belly in a circular motion. "Oh, man, Matt. Please make some for me too!"

"Me too!" Gabumon said. "It's not fair that Agumon and Tai get some and I don't, Matt. It's not like I don't live with you."

"For the last time," Yamato rose his voice. "I'm not Matt! I'm Yamato Ishida! And like hell anyone's getting married here. We're all eventually mating to repopulate the earth."

Everyone's face paled.

Mimi placed a hand over her mouth in shock whispering more to herself, "Was that why Dr. Kido wanted to set up an appointment with me later this week?"

"Except you," Yamato pointed to Tai, "you homicidal maniac! When we find that crystal, you're outta here."

"Then you're in luck," Tai held out a peace sign, "because I know where that crystal is! But I'm afraid no one is up to mating with everyone and we don't serve Chicanemon. Man, are you in for a doozy when you come to."

Biyomon silently held Sora's hand willing for her friend to awaken. Gomamon stood at the barrier's edge, his front paws laid flat against the barrier walls watching Dr. Kido desperately wanting to reach out to him again.

TK kissed the back of Kari's hand and gazed into her eyes silently communicating to Kari what he was about to do. Kari gave a small nod and went to sit next to her brother. Salamon, sat on her lap as Patamon rested on TK's head. It was time to bring his brother back.

* * *

TK scooted in front of his brother preventing Yamato from lashing back. The only thing he could think of to help jog his memory was one name. "Danny Brown. Do you remember Danny?"

Yamato hesitated, searching his own thoughts. "The Originator?"

"Uh, sort of," TK looked to the others struggling to think of how to bring Danny back into this. "We were taught by Dr. Kido that Danny Brown was the original betrayer to this group; our own personal Judas."

Yamato grunted. "It's forbidden to speak of his name. He's dead."

"Yes. And why did he die?"

Yamato scowled standing to his feet. "I'm not here to have a history lesson, Takeru. You're feeling better. Now let's get going."

TK stood to block Yamato's path. He spoke in a low, firm tone. "I'm not going anywhere and neither are you. You mean the world to me, and if you think you're leaving without hearing the truth, whatever it takes, I'll keep you here."

Yamato took a step back surprised at his brother's reaction. He scanned everyone else to see their concern expressions.

"Doesn't it peak your curiosity why Chicanemon turned his back on you even though you've been a faithful servant?" TK asked. "Why you can't remember what happened a week ago? Or, anything of your childhood other than what we've been told? How about any major life events a year or two ago?"

"Why does it matter," Yamato grumbled not able to hide the worrisome look overshadowing himself as he realized his memories were blank.

"How did we get this house? What caused the destruction of the planet and everyone else outside this street that's sectioned off and protected?" TK pointed to the refrigerator. "How do we get food? There's no grocery store. The faucets don't run. How do we drink water?"

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever - "

"It's all fake! If the timeline's the same as the real world's time, we haven't drunk or ate for 6 days!"

"Matt," Gabumon tugged on Yamato's overalls, "You used to play the harmonica. It was beautiful. We'd sit outside watching the stars as you played your troubles away. Can you try to remember that?"

"Matt," TK asked again. "Tell me who was Danny Brown?"

"He's…the traitor," Yamato fought to remember a foggy memory.

"And what did he do to me?" TK insisted.

"He…This is stupid!" Yamato roared. "I'm out of here!"

"If you don't want to talk about Danny, then who am I?" TK pleaded with his brother. "And please don't say Takeru. Search deeper. Our parents didn't die. They're actually divorced, but alive. We lived in separate homes, I usually went to your place all the time -"

Yamato grabbed TK's arms squeezing tight, his voice stern. "Enough! Snap out of it!"

"Think about it, Matt! Have I ever lied to you?"

A staring contest commenced. The silence became strong to the point of hearing Patamon breathing. Yamato looked away letting go of his brother's arms.

"Some…Sometimes I have nightmares…"

"About what?" TK pressed.

"About our parents divorcing instead of dying and you living away from me…How did you know?"

"Remember how it's always been you and me?" TK smiled, his voice softening.

"Always has been," Yamato's voice cracked.

"It's been more than that, big brother. See these guys?" TK motioned to everyone there. "See Gabumon? They're our family too. Our family has always been big, not solely you and me. And do you know what we do best? We protect our family."

Yamato held his head fighting the flood of memories returning along with a headache.

"We can't do this without you, big brother. We need your help to bring Joe back and to end this war. Now tell me," TK's voice softened, "What's my name?"

With uncertainty, the older brother's eyes remained on the floor taking quick breaths. All the memories that flashed before his eyes were unbelievable. What terrified him the most was remembering running away from a tidal wave of billowing sand in the desert and believing his own brother died.

"Chicanemon is a Digimon," Matt's voice cracked. His eyes drifted to Gabumon, "You're one of my best friends, Gabumon." He then looked at his brother fighting the lump that was forming in his throat struggling to speak. "I thought I lost you, TK. I thought…"

TK pulled Matt into a silent hug. Everyone and Digimon, except Sora who remained unconscious, surrounded the two in a supportive group hug. This was their family and they were all going to make it out of this together.

Seven down, one more to go.

* * *

"Sora!" From the corner of her eyes, Biyomon spotted Sora slowly sitting up. She ran to her giving a tight hug crying, "Sora, I was so worried! I'm happy you're okay!"

Everyone in unison looked towards Sora and shouted her name with relief. Tai pushed his way out of the group hug and ran over to cuddle Sora asking if she was okay. When he was reassured, they shared a hug.

Matt found himself heading their way to check on Sora as well but paused. Something was different. It was coming back to him that earlier Tai mentioned Sora was his girlfriend. The only thing Matt could do, not able to hide the hurt behind an indifferent expression, was ask the one question everyone wondered.

"When?"

Tai and Sora looked at each other blushing.

"We have more importing things to figure out, guys," Izzy partially came to Tai and Sora's rescue. "Just because Chicanemon and Dr. Kido haven't attacked this barrier _yet_ doesn't mean we have all the time in the world. Tai, you said you know where the crystal is?"

"But what about Joe?" Gomamon pleaded on the verge of tears. "We need to help him!"

Mimi sat next to Gomamon, Palmon trailing after her. "We will, sweetie, but I think we need time to figure out how before we can help Joe. He's too far gone to listen to logic."

Tai fished his digivice from his pocket and handed it to Izzy while eyeing Dr. Kido. Something seemed even more so off than a few minutes ago. "Yeah, it merged into my digivice."

They were all given their digivices when they entered the protective barrier. TK, who held onto Matt's, returned it to him after their hug.

"What?" Izzy took the digivice examining it perturbed with this revelation. "How is that possible. What'd you do?"

"I didn't do anything!" Tai became defensive, his line of sight snapping back to attention. "I held it up against him and the stupid thing merged with my digivice! How was I supposed to know that it'd happen?"

Izzy sat in the computer chair hooking it up to the computer scanning the files for the crystal groaning in annoyance. Everyone hovered around to watch as Izzy's fingers danced on the keyboard like there was no tomorrow.

It came out in a slow awe. "Prodigious…"

"Well, what is it, Izzy?" Sora asked while they all subconsciously leaned in to read the information that was on the computer screen.

"Holy cow," TK closed his eyes in relief. "He really did it. Danny actually came through."

"That punk actually made up for all the mess he caused," Matt wore a sad, one-sided frown.

"May his soul rest in peace," Tai solemnly followed up.

Everyone gave a moment of silence.

"Izzy," Tai urged glancing back to Dr. Kido, "whatever plan you're thinking of, better tell it to us now. He's starting to glow red and I really don't think red's his favorite color."

In unison, everyone looked to Dr. Kido to find a light red glow emanating from his body. He was now silently mouthing a chant in a calm manner.

Izzy read the farewell note left from Danny out loud to everyone:

_'Sup, guys. Here's hoping you all find this before it's too late. I know what I've done has gone beyond forgivable. I only hope the information I leave here will help make up for some of the pain._

_TK, I hope this doesn't stop you from speaking with your fans. Kari, I'm sorry for overstepping my boundaries. Tai, I'm sorry for meddling in. Sora, it wasn't true. Joe, what I said was uncalled for. Matt, I'm sorry for messing with your family because I wished I was a part of it too. And for everyone, I'm sorry for creating that disease of a Digimon, Chicanemon._

_If you're reading this, I ran out of time to stop him before he caught on to me, but thankfully you've all found this crystal before he did. Think of this crystal as the antidote to the Chicanemon virus._

_I programmed it to recognize your digivices; hence why all of your crests symbols were etched on it. To activate, you all need to touch it, but the Light has the final say because, in Light, darkness has no power._

_Remember the definition of darkness, Kari?_

Izzy turned to Kari. "Do you?"

Kari pressed her lips together thinking. "Vaguely. Danny brought it up at one point, but I think I was distracted."

Izzy clarified. "Darkness is defined as the absence of light. In science, darkness isn't a 'thing', but rather a 'condition' since light is being suppressed. I'm intrigued as to why he would bring this up. Did Danny believe that there was some 'good' left in Chicanemon, or that his Digimon was completely corrupted?"

"You mean, like with Willis and Endigomon?" Kari asked.

"Precisely," Izzy agreed. "I theorize Danny wrote this letter as vague as possible in case Chicanemon found this before we did. But at this moment it's not helping us and Dr. Kido's getting worse."

"This is great," Palmon whined, "but if the crystal is stuck in there, how do we get it out?"

Tai frantically searched his mind thinking about the past. The answer was right there on the tip of his tongue on what Danny meant on how to use it, but it wasn't coming together. It was staring them in the face and if he failed as their leader…

"Let's all talk this through" Tai began, his eyes flickering side-to-side to the ground as he thought out loud. "TK, what happened that day you met Danny?"

"How would that help?" TK asked confused. "We all know what…" His voice trailed off noting Tai's desperation. TK glanced back to Dr. Kido seeing the light red glow become slightly darker. Putting an arm around Kari's back, he answered, "It started after I left a reading from my book…"

* * *

**_Four months ago, Book Reading from Our First Adventure: The Digidestined_ **

"Excuse me! I think this is yours."

TK Takaishi turned around looking for the person calling for him. It was late in the evening, around six-thirty, and he had just left a public library in Tokyo with a much larger turnout for his book reading, book signing, and promotion than expected. He readjusted his bookbag that was hanging from his right shoulder as the young man approached him holding a leather-bound journal.

TK's eyebrows rose in surprise taking hold of the journal. "My journal! Thanks a bunch! I could've sworn I left it in my bag the whole time." Stuffing it safely inside his backpack he added, "You've saved me weeks of notes for my next book. What can I do to repay you? Would you like me to give you a free signed copy of my book?"

"Already have one," the young man immediately dismissed the offer and scanned the shops around the area. "I wasn't looking for a reward, but if you have some time, could I pick your brain about a few things? How about coffee?"

"Coffee?" TK looked at his watch and sorted his thoughts.

It was getting late. He needed to pick up the engagement ring he purchased and meet Kari for dinner. Most nineteen-year-olds were taking college classes and studying for exams. TK already made a name as an author and knew who he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. There was also the question of asking Kari's parent's and Tai's blessing out of respect. He hoped to have this all done before dinner.

But, then again, the book signing ran later than scheduled. By the time he'd picked up the engagement ring by public transit, showered, changed, asked her family and then picked up Kari from her college dorm, it'd be too late. Disappointed, TK resigned to the fact that his big moment would have no choice but to happen another day.

"Sure! Let me text my girlfriend and let her know where to meet -"

"Kari Kamiya, right?" The young man asked with eager. "I mean, in the book you two were too young, but she's your girlfriend, right?"

TK paused from reaching for his cell phone that was in his backpack taken aback. "Yeah. How did you know that?"

"It's the way you write about her in the book. She's written differently than the others."

TK grinned admiring the perception of his fan. "Is that so? I never realized that. I'll have to tell her that."

"I'm Danny. Danny Brown," Danny reached a hand out to shake TK's with a huge smile.

"Nice to meet you, Danny," TK reciprocated.

Turning back to his backpack, TK took hold of the small three number lock that was clipped on the zipper and unlocked it to fish for his phone. His eyebrows instantly furrowed. He purposely had a number lock on his backpack and still couldn't remember taking his journal out at the library today. In fact, he had no reason to do so. His backpack was nearby the entire time.

So, how did Danny find his journal?

Ah. That's right. Kari called before showtime to wish him luck and he forgot to turn the ringer off. He was frantically searching through the bag for it. Perhaps in his haste, he didn't remember taking it out?

Danny's eyes shifted, his feet turned the opposite direction of TK. "Everything alright?"

TK mentally shook the nagging thought away and with his head pointed to a gastropub. "Yeah, yeah, it's all good. Let's head over there for drinks and food. They have good appetizers too. I'll call Kari to meet us here."

* * *

**_Present Day_ **

"If I would've trusted my instinct about Danny in the first place, none of us would be in this predicament," TK stated angrily to himself. "I brought him into everyone's lives because I really thought he was a nice guy and we got along fine."

Kari placed a hand on his shoulder trying to comfort him. "You had no idea this would all happen."

"So, Danny stole your journal only to use it to meet you," Tai repeated a summary of TK's account of that day. "What kind of notes were in it? Whatever you wrote down is how he learned all about us."

TK rattled off from memory, "Notes from my first book about our first time in the digital world and scenes that were deleted from that book. There were notes about my next three short stories: The first time you and Kari met the first Agumon in Highton View Terrace, when you, me, Matt and Izzy fought Diaboromon the first time, and when we all helped Willis the second time."

"What about when Diaboromon returned for the third time?" Sora asked.

TK shook his head. "No. That's too far in advance. Those three stories are enough to work on at the moment."

While TK shared with the group, Izzy was busy trying to figure out how to release the crystal from Tai's digivice. Tai kept trying to put the clues together.

Frustrated, Tai called out to his sister. "Hey, Kari. What did he mean that he overstepped his boundaries? Did he do something to you?"

Everyone grimaced waiting for Tai to explode. It didn't help that Tai caught TK with a scowl looking away.

Kari shook her hands trying to maintain the peace. "No, he didn't do anything physically to me."

"Yeah? Then why does TK look upset and why didn't I know about this?"

Kari sighed. "It was stupid, really. All you need to know is that I made sure Danny understood I was a human being, not a character he could rewrite to whatever 'ship' he wanted."

"Oohh, I remember this," Mimi said. "This is after he met Davis and tried to help out."

"What does that mean 'tried to help out'?" Tai grew concerned. "And what's a 'ship'?" He turned to Matt.

The only response out of Matt was the same confused expression while he shrugged his shoulders.

"This isn't going to help us out with the crystal, Tai," Kari insisted. "But there was one thing that was concerning…"

* * *

**_Three months ago, Odaiba Park_ **

"You can't be serious," Kari scrunched her eyebrows and folded her arms with anger. "It takes a lot to make me angry, but this tops it."

Davis blushed a deep red. A hand went behind his neck and with an awkward laugh, he replied, "But I'm…confused. You texted me saying you broke up with TK."

"That isn't funny, Davis. Why would I break up with him and go running to you? Is this a desperate attempt because I said I'd marry him? This is low even for you."

There was instant regret the minute the words came out of her mouth. Frustrated or not, she'd never speak to Davis like that. Her head was still spinning that he surprised her here, took her in his arms, and almost kissed her. That was so unlike him. Davis always made it known he was in love with her, but he never overstepped his boundaries.

Davis' voice was small attempting to hide the hurt. His feet shifted side-to-side. "You know I'd want you happy no matter what, and if it's with TK then I'll support you…But, Kari," he took his cell phone out from his pocket and showed her the text he received earlier, "Why would you text me that you changed your mind and wanted to give us a chance? I thought it was weird, but it's from you."

Kari's mouth hung open in disbelief. Davis may be annoyingly persistent, but he also never was a liar. "What are you talking about? Let me see that."

Something wasn't adding up. It was her phone number that showed on his phone, but she never sent the message. She took her phone out and searched her sent messages to find the same message there. Who managed to send Davis the message without her knowing? More importantly, who would do this to them?

"Kari?" Davis asked seeing her lost in thought.

Her eyes caught a figure peeking behind a tree afar off from behind Davis. She couldn't make out who it was but the built looked similar to Danny.

Davis followed to where she was looking. "What the… Who's that?"

The figure sprinted away.

"Dude, that looked like Danny!" Davis exclaimed. "You don't think…"

"There's only one way to find out," Kari declared chasing after the figure. "Let's go!"

* * *

**_Present Day_ **

"We lost sight of him, but we were sure it was him," said Kari.

With TK's arm still around Kari's back, the same hand rubbed her arm in support. "She came with me the next day with Davis and the three of us confronted Danny. He denied everything, but it was about that time that we all started to distance ourselves from him.

"It wasn't the first time he'd play pranks that always went overboard. It was almost like being friends with us wasn't enough. Like Kari said, he was treating us as characters trying to prank us all into hooking up with someone else; like multishipping."

Matt frowned. "What's this 'ship' and 'multishipping' I'm hearing? Someone care to explain?"

"It's when people like how characters get along in a movie, play, book, tv show, or anime. You know, stuff like that," TK explained, "and they like them so much together that they 'ship' them together. Or, for 'multishipping', they like the same character ending up with different characters."

A hush fell on the group again to even Izzy stopped typing as the last six days began to make sense.

"That was part of what Chicanemon was doing here," Tai said disgusted. "Put us together, keep us apart, start over with a reset."

Izzy closed his eyes at this revelation. "Why write fanfiction about us, when Danny could do it in real life?"

"You lost me at 'fanfiction', but at this point, I don't care anymore," Matt growled seeing the answers come together. "This nut couldn't get his fill with reading my brother's book. So, he manipulates us all with a Digimon he created to trick us into going back to the digital world so we can be captured?"

Matt took a quick glance at Sora to see she was holding hands with Tai. It stung to see that, but even more so that Danny thought he had every right to control them all like puppets and to ship who he wanted when he wanted. Not to mention it stirred certain memories and feelings. Sticking them all here in this world, believing that as 'Yamato' that he was with Sora was cruel.

Matt repeated what he said earlier when he was Yamato. " 'We're all eventually mating'. Huh…It's making sense."

"Let's speed this up," Tai announced taking note of Dr. Kido standing to his feet, the red color darker, while continuing his quiet chant. "We all know what he did to me, Sora, Joe, and Matt, right? Anything that stood out as odd?"

"Danny's smart. He knows how to hack electronics," Sora reminded them all. "He graduated college at twelve years old and when he met us he was nineteen working at a corporation as a White Hacker."

"A what?" Mimi asked.

Izzy clarified, "A White Hacker, simply put, is someone that is hired to legally attempt to hack into their security system. If successful, that means there's a weak spot and the company can patch that area. The thing was that Danny was too good for his own good."

"He also had 'sticky fingers'," Sora sighed. "Any minute we turned around he was busy looking through any private thing we had. And he basically did the same to Tai, Matt & I like he did to you, Kari. I think he didn't understand how far was too far with pranks. I'm glad that before he passed, he changed."

"I overheard him tell Joe once that he needed to man up and tell me he had a crush on me, that it didn't matter I was married," Mimi interjected. Izzy raised a brow disturbed with this new information but stayed quiet. "Joe stood his ground and Danny laughed it off saying it was a joke."

"As much as a troll Danny could be, he did have a thirst for knowledge and he was a good guy," Matt remarked sighing. "It took me and Tai sitting him down for a man to man conversation…Well," he smirked, "At least there were _two_ men at the conversation."

"Hey! I contributed!" Tai retorted.

TK spoke up. "After you guys spoke with him, he calmed down with pranks and he was actually a cool guy to hang with once in a while." Everyone agreed, some nodding their heads. "This still doesn't make sense. What does, is when he thought he deleted Chicanemon -"

"Chicanemon went rogue! That's it!" Izzy exclaimed. "TK's book inspired him to create Chicanemon in secret as a straight up mega level but with no levels in between. When he met TK, and he was brought into our lives, it took him some time to see that they're beings too. Matt, Danny didn't manipulate us with Chicanemon to bring us here, because he started realizing that Digimon weren't toys from the talk you and Tai gave him. It must've helped him see that.

"It wasn't until he came to us for help to destroy Chicanemon last week, confessing what he did prior to meeting us, and how he couldn't control his Digimon, that Chicanemon must've realized how powerful he was! Maybe Chicanemon wanted to take it a step further and create Danny's fantasy in real life so he could gain Danny's approval. That's why at first Chicanemon labeled him the 'Originator'. But when Danny tried to stop it by attempting to delete him he became the 'Betrayer' and…"

A hush overcame them again.

"Oh, Danny. You sweet bonehead," Sora sighed, downhearted.

Tai glanced at Kari. "Kari, you have the Crest of Light."

"Yeah. So?" Kari's attention piqued.

"He has you linked to this riddle. Not only did he mention you, 'light' is capitalized twice."

Kari's eyes widened. "I'm the light. Of course! Izzy, unplug Tai's digivice! I know how to get the crystal!"

Without hesitation, Izzy unhooked it and handed it to her.

* * *

Kari held Tai's digivice enclosed in the palms of her hands and closed her eyes. Focusing on the crystal, the digivice glowed to the point that the light streamed out from between her fingers. Opening her palms, the crystal slowly floated out of the digivice and remained in the air.

Just like when Tai first found it in the cave, the crystal had everyone's crests etched on all sides of it and a low, twinkling melody played. Before Tai could grab it, a loud boom was heard and the protective barrier shook.

Everyone yelped and searched for the source. There stood Dr. Kido yelling profanities and banging the barrier with his fists. Except, these weren't normal punches. His skin now glowed a deep, ominous red and with each fist that landed on the barrier, the impact was about twice his strength.

"Tai," Matt yelled above the noise, " now's a good time for a plan!"

"Everyone touch the crystal," Tai ordered taking hold of it. "Let's activate this so we can help Joe!"

As each one did as they were told, their crest symbols illuminated. Kari was the last to touch the crystal. As soon as she did, the ground shook causing a few of them to lose their balance and their crest symbols to lose their shine completely, resulting in deactivating the crystal. Dr. Kido was knocked to the ground.

There was silence from the shock of it all.

"Again!" Kari shouted the command piercing the silence.

"Huddle close and hold on to each other this time," TK added.

As Kari was the last to hold it again, the ground shook once more. The crystal glowed, blinding them until a booming wave of energy was released, and once more knocked Dr. Kido to the floor.

A god-like, blood-curdling scream boomed from the heavens. Chicanemon was wounded and the crystal was activated still firmly floating in the air.

The screams intensified as Izzy deactivated the barrier. "Help me bring Dr. Kido inside while he's disoriented!"

As everyone and Digimon dragged Dr. Kido's body back to where the barrier was located, ignoring his threats from his discombobulated state, another wave of energy from the crystal was released on its own - but this time shot through the ceiling, blowing the roof completely off, and towards the sky. The blood-curdling scream boomed as Izzy reactivated their protective barrier.

What happened next left them all confused: The sky broke into shards and rained down. As each piece hit the protective barrier, it left cracks weakening their only source of protection.

Dr. Kido sat up laughing. "Now you've done it. Choosing 'The Betrayer's' crystal over serving our Lord has found you all unredeemable! When he gets done with -"

Kari aimed the crystal to Dr. Kido. A light shot from it and engulfed him. "Oh, hush! You're giving us all a headache."

* * *

Joe had a splitting headache. He removed his eyeglasses to wipe them on his shirt but was surprised to feel Gomamon jump on his lap.

"Joe! Joe, you're alright!" Gomamon happily cried jumping into his arms and dropping Joe's digivice on his lap.

"I'd like to say that I am, but my head hurts like a - Oh my God! The sky is falling!" Joe scrambled to his feet holding Gomamon in his arms. "Guys, do you see that? The sky's falling!"

"You'd be right, Chicken Little," Matt replied.

The group huddled close together unsure of what to do. The crystal was releasing waves of energy every three seconds on its own with no end of the falling sky.

Holding Gomamon close to his chest, Joe ducked instinctively as a large chunk of the sky crashed against the barrier, weakening it faster. As he ducked, he accidentally pushed Sora to the side.

Blushing, he kept his eyes lowered. "Oh, so-sorry, Sora. I, uh…"

Sora smiled placing a hand on his shoulder. "It wasn't you, Joe."

Relieved, Joe let out a small sigh. "Thanks."

"Yeah, Joe," Tai quipped with a teasing grin. "Whatever she's talking about, it wasn't you."

"Kari, how'd you know how to bring me back?" Joe asked looking to change the subject.

"I don't know. I just…felt it," Kari answered. "I have this feeling the light that first came out of all of our digivices, right before Chicanemon trapped us to wherever we are, helped us retain our memories so that we could all turn back to our normal selves when the time came. I knew the crystal could help with the rest and turn you back, Joe."

"Then by hiding the digivices, Chicanemon must've suspected the same thing," Izzy theorized.

"Is that…" Matt squinted shielding his eyes with a hand.

"The desert?" Tai finished Matt's sentence doing the same.

The more the world around them fell, the more of another world became apparent to their vision. The lie that Chicanemon fed them that they were surrounded by a protective barrier was partially true, except they never technically left the desert. Chicanemon had them trapped inside of an illusion this entire time.

Another large chunk of the illusion world fell against the barrier successfully penetrating it. The barrier was no more. Kari ran to retrieve the crystal and huddled close to the group once more. As soon as she grasped it, the crystal ceased its attack.

They were all back in the desert where it first started. An eerie calm surrounded them all. Chicanemon couldn't be seen.

"Hey, guys," Tai said scanning the desert carefully, "To avoid another trap, if you're not sure what you see is an illusion aim your digivice at whatever Chicanemon sends your way. Now would be a good time for all of us to digivolve into your mega forms. Agumon, Gabumon, digivolve to Omnimon!"

"Showtime!" Agumon and Gabumon shouted.

All of the Digimon leveled to their mega forms and circled the Digidestined to protect them while they waited for Chicanemon to appear. The hot desert sun beat down on them as they waited in silence in the stale, hot air.

Sora looked down at her left hand feeling a pinky hooking to hers. She looked to Tai, as nerves to the impending battle consumed them all. Tightening her pinky around his, Sora whispered, "If anything happens, I'll find you again."

Tai kissed the top of her head, "Ditto."


	8. The Showdown

"Transcendent Sword!"

"Beauty Shock!" Rosemon followed after Omegamon.

"Arctic Blizzard!" Vikemon shouted, aiming his attack in the same direction.

Shortly after their escape from Chicanemon's alternate universe, the demented digimon had materialized again in true dramatic fashion, posing admist a wild flurry of desert sand - until he fired back in defense.

After doing so, the tidal wave downgraded into a miniature sandstorm surrounding only Chicanemon's body allowing them to finally see his outline. In his weakened state, he couldn't muster the energy for anything more.

Before Rosemon could restrain Chicanemon with her Ivy Hug attack so Kari could aim the crystal again to end this war for good, Chicanemon shouted with all his might, "I have something of Danny's!"

Everyone and digimon hesitated. Tai and Matt looked at each other in silent communication. In the end, Tai answered with a frown, "We don't negotiate with evil digimon. Make it easier on yourself and surrender."

Rosemon took her cue once more and this time successfully held Chicanemon in her Ivy Hug attack. The rest of the digimon stood ready to deliver the final blow along with the crystal.

Chicanemon yelped, the sandstorm surrounding him becoming smaller. He shouted enraged, _"Pathetic humans!_ I offer something important to Danny before I die and you _still_ choose to throw it away!"

"Wait!" A lump formed in TK's throat at the possibility. He ran to Matt and Tai. "I know there's no way I could've known this would happen, but what if he does have something -"

"What are you doing?" Kari interrupted TK. She held the crystal with a firm grasp aiming it towards Chicanemon's direction waiting for her opportunity to activate it again. "Why the hesitation?"

"It's a trick Chicanemon's attempting knowing he's about to die, TK," Matt argued. He turned back to the evil digimon shouting his next sentence. "We're not falling for that!"

"Yeah!" Joe shouted to Chicanemon. "After all the crud you've put Danny and all of us through, we're supposed to believe you?"

"...Fair enough," Chicanemon replied after a moment's paused. There was an eerie, calm tone as he spoke behind the sandstorm. "An eye for an eye, I see. I'll remove the sand to show good faith."

The Digidestined stood huddled together on high alert, their digimon partners ready to attack at a second's notice as the sandstorm immediately ceased dropping to the ground. When the scene was cleared, Sora and Mimi each threw up holding on to their significant other after their eyes focused on what Chicanemon was holding in his arms. As for the rest, their mouths hung open in shock holding close to whoever was standing next to them. Rosemon gasped, instantly releasing Chicanemon.

This was the first time everyone saw Chicanemon's true form: Danny created Chicanemon as a humanoid digimon because it was as if they were staring at Danny himself - Except with this version of Danny, Chicanemon's skin was sickly pale. There were several gaping holes throughout his body and face with digital data flickering within the holes. But what made them all sick to their stomachs was what Chicanemon held in his arms:

Danny's mangled corpse.

When they all arrived in the digital world a week ago to destroy Chicanemon, Danny was to originally come along to help them find Chicanemon. Danny said he would meet back at Tai's place, but needed to grab a few things to turn the tide towards their favor. When Danny didn't come back and he couldn't be reached, they assumed the worse and entered the digital world to where they were told Chicanemon liked to spend his time.

The moment they landed in the desert, they watched Danny argue with Chicanemon about why kidnapping him was unnecessary, and then jumped into the billowing tidal wave of desert sand to attack, despite everyone's objections. They all helplessly watched Chicanemon spit Danny's lifeless body back out onto the sand. Hence, why everyone at the beginning believed they'd die as well if they were all sucked into the tidal wave.

Trying to keep himself together, and not able to remove his eyes from Danny's body, TK slowly raised a shaking arm aiming his digivice towards it to verify if they were seeing an illusion. Sure enough, it was really Danny.

Chicanemon sneered. "Now why would I fake the Betrayer's death and cheat myself on this glorious moment to see your faces?"

"You monster," TK could barely get the words out as tears brimmed in his eyes. "Danny wasn't the Betrayer or the Originator. His name was Danny Brown. He created you and wanted to be your friend! How could you kill your -"

**_"He killed himself the moment he turned on me!"_ **Chicanemon interrupted, booming with authority. "I was created to bring him happiness by showing him illusions of multiships from characters in a book. It helped him write his fanfiction. But when he met _you_ ," he snarled at TK until eventually glaring at everyone else, "you all turned him against me! He stopped writing and spent less time with me. He even _dared_ to attempt to delete me! And for that," a small smirk appeared, "Everyone will die."

Before anyone could react, Chicanemon clapped his hands once resulting in an echoing boom, and everyone's vision turned black.

* * *

"Taichi! Taichi, wake up!" Sora frantically shook him with desperation. "Please, open your eyes!"

Startled, Taichi sat up gasping for air. He nearly lost his balance until he realized the both of them were sitting on thick, oak tree branches at Odaiba Park. They both must've dozed off again. The clouds were dark threatening to rain as parents gathered their children to head home.

Taichi yawned, then stretched as he complained, "Awww, what's the harm of a shower, Sora? You've always loved thundershowers."

"When I'm safe inside my house, idiot!" Sora argued.

"You know," he grinned waiting for the punch he was going to receive with this comment, "Just because you're in an apartment, it doesn't mean you're 'safe'. Lightning can go through the window. I've also heard that if you're talking on a landline, or even if -"

Sora slapped him on his arm and was even more annoyed that he was laughing at her reaction. "What kind of boyfriend are you? Thanks for the reassurance!"

Taichi's mouth hung open at this revelation. "We're dating? When did this happen?"

Sora clicked her tongue annoyed. "Since yesterday. Or, were you not listening as usual?"

"Dude, I swear that's something I would remember," he said quickly sitting up. "Don't you remember I'm dating -"

Yamato appeared hanging upside down from a higher branch. "Yo! What's hanging?"

Taichi screamed from being startled. Sora slapped Taichi for scaring her with his reaction after she calmed from the surprise.

Yamato raised an eyebrow, folded his arms, and shook his head. "Listen, Sora, he's not dating you. He's not even remotely into you. He and I are in a relationship. He belongs to me."

"That's not what he said yesterday," Sora answered with a coy expression.

Both Yamato and Sora looked towards Taichi waiting for an explanation.

Taichi released a nervous laugh and rubbed the back of his neck. "Sora, I'm dating Yamato. I've never thought of you that way. Didn't we already have this conversation yesterday?"

The sky rumbled with thunder and a small breeze appeared. Sora frowned folding her arms as Yamato flipped off the branch he was hanging on landing in between them. He laid an arm around Taichi and kissed the top of his head.

"Taichi," Sora's frown deepened, "You didn't tell him, did you?"

"Tell me what?" Yamato frowned as well.

Taichi lowered his eyes letting out another nervous laugh. He couldn't take looking into his boyfriend's intense stare. "I may have said I would talk to you about a poly relationship with her, but I was kinda tipsy. So, I didn't think it'd count..."

"Excuse me!" Yamato roared. "Am I not good enough?"

"Like a trial," she shrugged. "Look, Yamato, I know you're still in love with me, but this way everyone wins, and I get to be with Taichi, and you with me."

Taichi and Yamato glared at each other. Taichi motioned to defend himself, but was met with Yamato deepening his disapproving scowl. Thunder could be heard in the distance. Before Yamato could give his verdict they heard others arguing below at the base of their tree. The three looked down to find Koushiro, Hikari, and Takeru.

"I'm not having this conversation anymore, Takeru!" Hikari argued holding a bouquet of flowers in her hands. "I'm not in love with you. Just because you're my best friend it doesn't mean we're meant to be! And I'm dating Koushiro!"

"Dating? Like a serious relationship? But that doesn't make sense!" Takeru argued back. "The two of you barely hang out, nor have anything in common!"

Koushiro stood in front of Hikari as if to shield her. "That's not for you to decide. I'm in love with Hikari, and...and I'm going to marry her!"

Hikari gasped with joy while Koushiro spun around to hug her.

Takeru rolled his eyes resting a hand on his forehead groaning. "This is unreal. This has got to be a joke. We have one argument yesterday over ice cream, and all of the sudden she's in love with him? Koushiro," he asked hoping to shed some light on a mystery. "What happened about your crush on Taichi?"

"I-I swear that's gone," Koushiro insisted to Hikari, who stood shocked at this news.

"Whoa, really? How come you never told me?" Taichi shouted from above.

Before Koushiro could respond, Yamato slapped Taichi at the back of his head with Taichi letting out a yelp. Sora, Yamato, and Taichi went back to arguing about their relationship. Koushiro blushed deciding not to involve himself with the trio.

"And what about Mimi? Weren't you two married?" Takeru tried the last thing he could think of.

"Married?" Mimi appeared from behind linking arms with Jou. "That was a sham."

"Mimi!" Koushiro whined from embarrassment from all his secrets coming to light. "You promised!"

"Honey, there's nothing wrong to admit it now," Mimi smiled explaining to everyone. "He offered to help me make Jou jealous."

"Wait, what?" Jou said confused. "That's a bit elaborate, don't you think?"

"This can't be real. This can't be real..." Takeru murmured to himself repeatedly shaking his head. "All this over stupid ice cream. All I wanted was a taste. This is way too dramatized because of not wanting to share a bite, don't you think?"

Lighting flashed closer to them causing all to jump.

Sora immediately jumped to Taichi burying her head in his chest begging in a quiet voice, "I wanna go home."

Taichi gritted his teeth feeling the pressure in the air dropping as everyone below began arguing, their voices increasing an octave. "Hey! Can you all keep it down? We're trying to decide what to do with our relationship before it starts to rain!"

"Guys," Takeru tried to shout above everyone's voice. "Guys! Hey!" He let out an ear-piercing whistle causing everyone to whine in pain holding their ears. "I said hey! Something isn't right here. Do you all feel it?"

Hikari sighed. "You're not changing my mind, Takeru."

"It's not about that," Takeru shook his head. "Don't you feel it?"

Hikari hesitated for a moment examining her surroundings. "Like...something's off."

"It's dark," Jou observed the same. "And what happened to the playground?"

Taichi jumped off the tree branch, his heart beating fast, feeling the answer was nearby. They were right. Something was off. Everywhere was pitch black except their tree, which was illuminated with a soft glow. It was as if the park they were at was swallowed whole by the darkness. The wind picked up enough in sharp, short bursts that Sora and Matt dropped to the floor to join everyone as they all huddled together for safety. Taichi's gut was screaming this wasn't normal, and when his gut spoke...

"I can't remember yesterday," Taichi said. "I mean, I know I was drinking with you, Sora, at my house, but that's just it. I only 'know'. I don't remember waking up, or what I had for lunch. I know that I'm dating Yamato, but," he turned to Yamato, "I don't..."

"You don't, what?" Yamato answered with a low growl. "Don't you say it."

Taichi shook his head unsure of how to say what he was thinking. "I don't have to because you don't remember how or when we started dating either."

"Take that back," Yamato raised his voice with a warning tone.

"I don't remember either," Jou spoke up addressing Mimi. "When did we become an us?"

Mimi sighed. "Men. They're never good at dates. Let's see. We...uh, well..." Everyone impatiently waited to hear her answer. "It's a little fuzzy?" She sheepishly grinned.

"I know I was arguing with Takeru because he stole a bite of my ice cream," Hikari tried to recall not realizing she was slowly raising her bouquet of flowers. "But, uh, I don't remember it." She looked to Koushiro to fill in the blanks.

Before Koushiro could speak his thoughts, everyone watched what appeared like the bouquet of flowers trying to escape Hikari's grasp. She gasped holding on tight with both hands.

"Somebody! Help!" she screamed. "Something is trying to take my flowers!"

"But there's no one there," Taichi replied. "Now isn't the time for jokes, Hikari."

Hikari dug her heels into the dirt with all her might holding tight to the flowers as the invisible force fought against her pulling her further into the darkness and away from the illuminated tree. "If it's a joke, how am I dragging myself!"

The group looked at each other until Takeru, followed by Taichi, chased after Hikari. The rest stood huddled together as the thunder, lightning, and wind increased.

The second Takeru touched the bouquet, his body stiffened and he blinked a few times shaking his head as if to clear the fogginess that he felt was lifted from his mind. Wait a minute. He was TK, not Takeru! Where were they? "Kari?" he ran to catch up to Taichi, who was holding her by her waist, trying to help pull her back to the tree. "Kari! Wake up! You're actually holding the crystal, not flowers! Wake up!"

"Who the heck is Kari?" she spat holding on to her flowers. "Now you're insulting me? Koushiro gave these to me and I won't lose them!"

"Now isn't the time for jokes either," Taichi responded to TK desperately holding on to his sister. "Are you blind?"

TK ignored his future brother-in-law and yelled over his shoulder to the group. "Why isn't anyone else helping? Get over here now! Taichi, try to take the crystal – I mean, flowers away," TK corrected himself. He had a hunch that if Taichi touched the bouquet like he did, the crystal would bring Tai back; just like it turned Dr. Kido back into Joe. "Use it to distract whatever's trying to pull her away!"

The others ran to them trying to hold Hikari as Taichi did what TK said. It worked. The second his fingers touched the bouquet, Tai stiffened having the same reaction as TK. While the others were beginning to have some kind of success of pulling her back to the light, Tai stretched out to reach for the flowers again. "Let go of the flowers, Kari!" Tai ordered. "I have a plan."

"I'm not Kari!" Hikari said as annoyance grew.

"Yes, you are!" Tai ripped one of her hands from holding the bottom of the bouquet and forcing her to touch the flowers.

She had the same reaction and Kari returned to herself. "Guys!" she cried. "It's Chicanemon! He's trying to take the crystal away!"

"I don't know who Chicanemon is, or what crystal you're talking about," Sora, who was still under Chicanemon's control marched over to where Tai stood and reached out with her hands into the darkness to see if she could feel this person, "but it's about to rain and I refuse to be struck by lightning. Found you, jerk!" In one swift motion, her fist swung hitting the invisible force successful with one try. The moment she did, lightning struck the ground inches away and the physical force accompanying it shook everyone to the floor.

Kari, fighting dizziness, struggled to her feet. She had to aim the flowers at everyone to bring them back so they could all escape. She had to or they would end up like Danny. The last time she felt terror like this was when she thought her brother died a few years back and the end of the world felt near. Where were Magnadramon and the others? Were they hurt?

"Kari! Kari, run!" Tai screamed. He was fighting an invisible force as he laid on the ground trying to push it off. TK jumped in to help hold Chicanemon to buy her some time.

As the others were standing to their feet disoriented, Kari brushed the flowers against the others allowing the crystal to do its job of bringing them back. When the fogginess lifted from their minds, they all huddled around her and held the bouquet aiming towards Tai and TK hoping it would catch Chicanemon. The bouquet transformed back into the crystal as if it managed to fight against the illusion itself. The wind howled around them as lightning randomly struck the ground haphazardly.

"Get off my brother!" Kari screamed in anger as the crystal released a burst of energy striking its intended target.

Tai and TK scrambled to their feet and all eight digidestined ran to the illuminated tree once more, each pressing their backs against the tree trunk and sucking in huge gulps of air. The lightning bolts striking the ground increased as did the roaring thunder.

"I'm tired of running away," Mimi huffed for air holding her belly. "I'm pregnant. I can't last much longer fighting. We need to destroy this world fast and get back to our digimon."

"Everyone, hold on to the crystal. We're breaking out like last time," Kari directed.

The crystal glowed again feeling everyone's touch. After each crest symbol activated once more, like in the last illusion they were stuck in, the crystal released short bursts of energy every three seconds allowing their surroundings to fall apart. The illuminating oak tree disappeared and the thunderstorm dissipated. Instead of shards from their surroundings falling from above, this time everything around them slowly melted away revealing the desert sky.

Their small victory was short lived.

Before they all could jump out of their prison, Chicanemon appeared in front of Kari without warning. A third of the top of his skull was missing, digital data flicking on and off from within. Chicanemon swiftly held the crystal in his hand before anyone could register he was there and croaked, "Boo!"

"No!" Kari screamed as she and everyone held on to the crystal.

The digidestined and Chicanemon all screamed struggling to hold on to the crystal. The crystal started to warm, reacting to Chicanemon's touch. It then stopped melting the surroundings and grew brighter. Chicanemon screamed placing his strength into pulling the crystal away and successfully held it in his hands while the others stared back in horror. Laughter bubbled out from within as he finally reached his goal of obtaining his only weakness. He raised the crystal above his head holding it horizontal with both of his hands holding each end.

And as he motioned to break it in half, Joe screamed with all his might charging towards the evil digimon. "I'm not going down without a fight! Even if it's my last one!"

The rest charged right after him. Chicanemon snarled, but before he could attack the bright light from the crystal was released blinding them all. The air became silent.

* * *

"Guys! Guys, are you all okay?" Davis cried out as Ken, Yolie, and Cody quickly went to each of the remaining eight digidestined trying to shake them awake. "Ken, they're not waking up!"

"They're going to be ok, Davis," Ken did his best to answer in a calm voice as he tried to shake Matt awake. "We have to believe that."

Imperialdramon, who was in Fighter Mode, lowered his hands to the ground. He could see what he assumed was Chicanemon afar off passed out. "Quick, give them to me before Chicanemon wakes up. I'll place them aside next to the rest of the digimon. Guard them while Aquilamon, Ankylomon and I take care of Chicanemon."

Yolie sniffed back tears dragging Mimi towards Imperialdramon. The original eight digimon had transformed back into their rookie forms, weak and passed out. The only information they had before Gomamon passed out was that Chicanemon attacked them after their partners were captured again. "I can't believe this is happening. How could Danny drag them all into this? Why didn't he tell us this sooner? Weren't we his friends too? I swear, nothing better happened to Mimi's baby."

"I can't find Danny," Cody stated pulling Joe towards Imperialdramon while Aquilamon and Ankylomon did their part too.

"I don't see him either," Davis sighed frustrated and scratched his head. Jamming his hand into his left pocket, he pulled his cell phone out. "Let me see that text he left again. Maybe we missed something."

Ken placed a hand on one of Davis' shoulders. "Davis, you know just as well as the rest of us that it said if we didn't hear from Danny in one hour to meet him here with the coordinates he gave."

"Yeah, I know," Davis pouted. "But why didn't Kari or TK at least email us on their D-Terminal to let us know what was happening instead of going in without us? I thought we were a team?"

Cody brought over the crystal he found jogging back to them. "I think I found the crystal, everyone! And the digimon Danny created looks just like him. It's creepy looking."

A gust of wind blew in the hot, dry desert shifting sand. Imperialdramon, Aquilamon, and Ankylomon each shielded their partners until the wind died down. When it did, Yolie wiped her glasses clean and placed them back on. Before she could comment on what to do next she let out a scream of fear and hurried to shield her face on Ken's chest. She had spotted Danny's lifeless body.

The other's rushed to her side and after following her line of sight let out a gasp of disbelief. Ken did his best to fight the nausea that was forming.

"No, no, not Danny," Yolie mourned, wiping her tears on her arm. "Ken, help me." She took hold of his shirt sleeve. "We have to help him."

Ken stumbled on his words overwhelmed. His feet were willing to move, but his mind was stuck staring at Danny. Memories of Sam's accident played in his head, ones he thought he came to peace with. Studying crime photos for the profession he wanted to pursue never stopped him cold before like this. Perhaps it was because they were strangers and he could easily detach himself. This was Danny. His friend.

"He's...Is he -"

"I don't care! He doesn't deserve to be left here!" she shouted through her tears, marching towards Danny's lifeless body.

"I've got this," Aquilamon intervened after watching Ken and the others struggle to move from shock. He looked to Imperialdramon and Ankylomon, who silently nodded in encouragement, and gently cradled Danny's body and laid him next to the others.

"We could've helped," Cody softly spoke to himself. "If only we were here sooner..."

Koushiro coughed quickly sitting up as the remaining digidestined stirred waking. He peeked through slitted eyes and after spotting Cody, Yolie, Ken, and Davis he croaked out, "Did we get it? Did we kill Chicanemon?"

"Izzy!" Yolie cried with relief hugging her friend and business partner tight. "Thank goodness you're awake!"

"Yolie! I can't breathe!" Izzy barely managed to say. "Ken, get your wife off of me!"

* * *

There's no time to spare," Izzy said. "We need to wake everyone and..." he trailed off noticing the remaining digimon had devolved back to their rookie forms. "What happened when we were trapped?"

Cody handed Izzy the crystal. "Dunno. We were hoping you could shed some light on that."

"Light..." The word meant something, but he couldn't place it until he saw Kari. It was coming back to him. "Light! There's no time to explain! Help me wake up everyone."

"Could you at least tell us why Danny waited to send us a text an hour ago to come here at this time and place instead of one of you telling us from the start?"

Izzy froze as a cold shiver ran down his spine. "An hour ago? What do you mean 'an hour ago'?"

Davis, Ken, Yolie, and Cody looked at each other confused. Davis was the one to speak up. "Look we...we know he's..." His eyes trailed to where Danny laid.

Izzy followed Davis to see Danny. He grimaced and turned back to them. "Yes, but I meant we've been missing for 6 days, which is as long as he's been..." he struggled to say the word, "dead. There's no way Danny would be able to send you a text an hour ago."

"Huh?" Davis took out his cell phone showing Izzy the date and time on the home screen. "Dude, look at the date. Heck, look at the text message. You've must've gotten a concussion to think six days."

Izzy did as Davis said and his face paled. He even took out his own cell phone to check the date as a safety measure to verify. Everything they went through, from living in the first illusioned alternate universe to this last one all happened under one hour! All the changes they've suffered through altered their sense of time. No wonder they didn't feel weak like they should've felt for not eating or drinking real food for that long period of time. No wonder their digimon were able to digivolve into their mega forms regardless of eating food from an illusioned universe. They were wasting too much time. They needed to end this right now.

Seeing his wife was waking, he crawled to her and helped her sit up. "Look, the very basic information is Chicanemon is a dangerous mega level digimon that excels in illusions. Trust nothing. Use you D-3's to verify anything and everything you see is real. You all have the same crests symbols that we do so the crystal should work. It's the only thing that will take Chicanemon out. The fact that Danny calculated to bring you here at precisely this time means he meant to use you as backup in case we failed."

Mimi wiped her eyes after registering who were standing near. She added to what Izzy said. "Please don't think this as Danny's fault. Chicanemon is acting out of misguided jealousy."

Tai spoke hugging Sora, exhaustion weighing heavily in his voice, as the others sat up. "Yes, but Danny knew the danger that Chicanemon would cause, enough to make that crystal to kill him, and that's good enough for me." He shook his head speaking more to himself. "Holy crap. One hour."

"Why are we talking? We could use this time to take it out," Matt weakly stood to his feet, his legs shaking. He was hunched over resting his hands on his thighs trying to stop the world from spinning. "We're wasting time!"

"Don't worry! He's passed out over..." Cody's eyes widened. "Uh-oh."

* * *

Chicanemon tried to stand but fell over. His left leg was blown off along with his left arm from the elbow down. Scanning the area he tried looking for the crystal and when he couldn't find it released a long frustrated scream.

Joe swiped the crystal away from Izzy's hands thrusting it into the air taunting Chicanemon. "Looking for this? We played your game. Twice!"

Before Chicanemon could retort, he noticed the four fresh faces. A sick smile grew revealing missing teeth as he addressed the newcomers. "Why, what is this? You must be...Wait, wait, let me guess." He pointed his right index finger to each, slowly moving to each target, as he called their names. "Davis, Yolie, Ken, and Cody." He curled his lips. "My collection is complete."

"Collect this!" Ankylomon responded and released an attack towards Chicanemon. Imperialdramon and Aquilamon joined the attack.

Chicanemon rolled his eyes and released a shield deflecting the attack. Normally, the evil digimon would have the strength to deflect the attack right back and marvel at the destruction. Not this time. This time sweat dripped down his forehead as he struggled to keep the barrier up. After the attack ended he took a deep breath to settle himself. That was all he needed before playing with all his toys again.

"An interesting fact I'd like to share with my toys before I pass away."

Sora leaned into Tai whispering, "Please say he's not referring to us as his toys?"

"Oh, brother," Tai sighed.

Chicanemon smirked watching all twelve of the digidestined gather to activate the crystal and aiming it towards him. "When most of you were trapped in my first world, all I did was set the rules of 'staying in character or be reset'," he counted with his fingers, "and to 'not go beyond the woods' which served as the border of that world. You all did the rest on your own. Which means, there are some serious issues with you humans. I believe the Betrayer called it a sociological experiment."

Tai hesitated. "What are you talking about?"

"Didn't you hear me? Wasn't I clear?" Chicanemon sighed already bored using an index finger to aimlessly draw in the sand. "The rest of you created what would happen. I was the author of that story if you will. With your memories suppressed, your subconsciousness took over to who you all secretly wished to be and, or, wanted.

"For example, Joe," He nodded to the mentioned digidestined. "Danny told me you're always following rules to the 'T'. Very studious in all you do. In the first world, your desire to become a doctor was strong and so that is what you became. However, deep down inside you wanted to be in control of everything and everyone and had some unrequited attraction to Sora and Mimi; thus, quickly changing the rules to having 'mating partners'."

"That's not true!" Joe objected, madly blushing. "I have a girlfriend whom I'm in love with!"

"You purposely spread the rumor to Matt and TK that Tai was a rapist and murderer after he came to you with the black eye, which quickly had him shunned from the rest of the group so you could have Sora to yourself and retrain her way of thinking."

"Shut up!" Joe yelled as Tai placed a hand over his black eye realizing how the rumor came to be.

Chicanemon smirked enjoying the reaction he was receiving while calmly continuing. "And when you promised Matt that Sora was his first mate to repopulate, or whatever bullshit you were spitting, oh, high and mighty cult master," Chicanemon spat out a laugh, "you took your word back because you never meant it in the first place. But how I wished this would have lasted longer to see your plans for Mimi go down. Woo! That would've been fun! Maybe that's why in the second world you asked Mimi out because you had your fill with Sora."

Davis joined the others slowly turning to Joe unsure of what to think. It just slipped from his lips. "What...the...f -"

"Come on, guys!" Joe sincerely insisted addressing everyone. "Can't you see he's trying to cause a division with us? We were all under his influence! He thrives on trickery!"

"Can we talk about Matt?" Chicanemon laughed. "Man, oh, man! In the first world, your deep desire was to have never been separated from TK and to win Sora back. But that would be too boring, so I made TK suffer from nightly amnesia. I'd apologize for interfering, but," he scoffed, "the author never apologizes for his work. Just to see Sora constantly reject you and for her to be taken away time after time running after Tai was priceless! Guess The Forbidden Red String of Fate book that your brother wrote didn't work for beans, did it?"

"Okay, that's enough with the mind games," Matt grasped the crystal with both hands this time tightening his grip. "None of what happened there was real, moron."

"No? I somehow have the ability to plant emotions inside each and every one of you?" This time Chicanemon stopped playing in the sand and stared intently.

"It must be easier to use me as your scapegoat. Go ahead and believe what was felt was fake. Fine by me. What I never expected was actually witnessing a romance blossom between you and Tai from the second world. I was like _'Whaaaaat'?"_ He threw his head back in laughter. "And the best part? Your face when Tai said he didn't remember when you two started dating! And then to be teased to be in a poly relationship with Sora, but oops!" He placed a hand over his mouth in a sarcastic manner, "That was fake again. Hey, Sora! Who knew you'd be into kinky shit!"

Sora's face turned a deep shade of red as she fumed with anger. Too many thoughts raced through her mind to be able to pick one to respond.

"Has anyone said you talk too much for someone that's about to die?" Matt's knuckles turned white after taking a quick glance at Sora.

"It must be lonely seeing she chose Tai over you," Chicanemon patronized. "To watch them regain their memories over and over again, constantly running into each other's arms -"

Tai let out a growl of frustration after watching Matt's and Sora's insecurities grow. It was awkward enough being placed in the different relationship scenarios, but to watch their past feelings be rubbed in their faces, to watch everyone else go through the same thing knowing Chicanemon was attempting deception once more was enough. "Everyone! Let's do this! You too," he addressed Cody, Yolie, Davis, and Ken. "Imperialdramon, Aquilamon, and Ankylomon give all you got. Kari, you know what to do!"

"Danny belonged to me, assholes!" Chicanemon screamed. He rolled to his belly and used his right hand to rapidly drag himself towards them for one last fight. "You forced me to kill him! You forced me to make you play out one more story to honor his death! You are the reason for ruining my purpose in life!"

"Your reason for existence was to be Danny's friend and help him write stories!" TK shouted his response with just as much passion. "Do you know how upset he was when he realized the only way to keep everyone safe was to take you out after seeing you were never going to understand that? If anything, you're the real Betrayer!"

Kari activated the crystal with her touch as she shouted, "Game over!"

Before Chicanemon could take another breath to react, the crystal released its final, destructive blow accompanied with the remaining digimons' attacks. Chicanemon's screams dissipated into the air along with his body. The crystal then floated into the air, the twinkling song it once softly played becoming loud, as if celebrating their victory, and exploded into a soft golden light sprinkling everywhere below within a two hundred feet radius.

Once again, the digital world was safe from evil.

* * *

The sun was setting causing the temperature to lower. The original eight digidestined glanced at each other with weary eyes, taking their digivices out and scanned their surroundings to make sure what they witnessed was real. Their digimon woke one by one and trudge over to their partners complaining about their aches.

"What are you all doing?" Yolie asked watching Tai, Sora, and everyone else scan the area. "It's over. We won, right?"

Tai wiped his brow. "After everything we've been through, it's better to -"

Sensing something was wrong, Izzy turned towards his wife and caught her in the midst of fainting. He carried her in his arms and reassured everyone since they all called to Mimi in a panic. "She's alright. Everything we've been through probably took a toll on her. I'll get her to bed for some much-needed rest."

"I'm coming too!" Palmon raced over to Izzy with Tentomon with concern. "I love you, Mimi!"

Imperialdramon, Aquilamon, and Ankylomon all transformed back into their rookie forms, following suit of the other digimon, and rejoined their partners again. There was silence until Patamon brought the needed subject up in a mournful tone.

"What should we do with Danny? We can't leave him here."

All twelve digidestined stood in silence, eyes downcast towards the desert sand. Their fallen friend didn't deserve this. Sora was the first to slowly walk to Danny's body as the rest followed behind. She wiped her tears on her left arm, then forced herself to say without breaking down in tears, "We take him home, and...and we'll figure out the rest later."

"His parents..." Ken lamented. "He was close with his parents."

TK pinched his eyes failing from holding back his tears, the guilt hovering over his mind. "It's my fault. It's all my fault."

"No, it's not," Matt pulled TK into a hug. "We need to remember how he changed after understanding the digital world and how brave he was for coming to us for help. Chicanemon was blinded by jealousy."

"Help me," TK sniffed pushing away from his brother. He walked to Danny's body. "I need help bringing him back."

Davis immediately ran over and took hold of Danny's ankles. "I got you, my man. Hold his arms."

Ken helped as well, holding underneath his back. "Me too."

"Yolie, go with them," Tai solemnly instructed. "Erase all evidence of Danny being tied to the digital world on any electronics. Even his fanfiction."

"What's fanfiction?" Cody, confused, scrunched his eyebrows and looked to everyone waiting to see if someone explained.

"Fanfiction?" Yolie questioned. "Is that what he meant by stories? It's starting to make sense."

"It's a long story," Sora eventually spoke sighing. "Let's get Danny home first."

Each footstep the digidestined took was heavy as they headed towards the nearest digiport. One by one they were all sucked in, but before Sora and Tai entered she held Tai's hand silently waiting for his attention. He knew that look. The one where she'd squint her eyes when she wanted to discuss something personal.

Catching Cody before he left, Tai asked, "Hey, man, could you do us a solid? After you go through the gate could you wait nearby until we ask for you to open the gate for us? Sora and I need to discuss something. And take Agumon and Biyomon with you."

"Please?" Sora asked placing her hands together pleading. "We'd really appreciate it."

"No problem," Cody agreed.

"Don't take too long, Sora," Biyomon cheerfully waved as she and Agumon followed Cody.

* * *

Closing her eyes, Sora took in a deep breath and slowly released it. The mix of emotions from everything that occurred, especially after finding out it all went down under an hour, was exhausting. In the beginning when Tai and she found the crystal in the cave and were resting to recover their strength, he talked about taking her to the country side for a vacation after this was done.

But all of that was trivial. She had a feeling Tai dismissed it, but she couldn't help listening to the little voice at the back of her mind to speak of something that Chicanemon brought up before they left.

"I realize this may not be the best time," she gave a quick side glance to the digiport to see how much privacy Cody was giving them, "but I just want you to know something."

For a few seconds, weariness shown as Tai's forehead wrinkled with concern. Taking hold of her hands was enough to wash it away momentarily. A soft smile grew.

"Is it something that monster said?"

"Well..."

"Really, Sora?" He chuckled. "Whatever it was we were all under his control. Unless," concern flashed in his good eye, "Were you hurt? Was it the first world?" His breathing quickened. "What Chicanemon said about Joe, was it true? Did Joe do anything -"

"No! I swear, it's not that," Sora was quick to put an end to his worries. "I know you're not shallow to think anything about this, but remember when Chicanemon boasted he was the author of the worlds we were in?

"In the first world, he influenced Joe, err rather Dr. Kido, to have Yamato as my mating partner. Whenever I was under his control, the concept in my head made sense. It was to be my civil duty. In the second world, that digimon pushed it further in wanting us to be in a polyamory relationship with Yamato."

"So?" He shrugged.

That was it? He truly didn't care?

"I know, I know," she shook her head more frustrated at herself for even daring to think Tai would hold any grudges or believe she still cared for Matt. She couldn't help but to ramble. "It's silly, but I wanted to make sure. Especially after I told Yamato that I knew he was still in love with me and we could all be together. I don't love him, Tai. That was the past. I know he still does, and I hope it doesn't cause any issues."

Tai chuckled holding the back of his neck. "Hi! Have we met? I'm Tai Kamiya and you look remarkably similar to my gorgeous girlfriend. The only difference is she knows I can feel her heart and it says it belongs to me."

Tears spilled. He truly was amazing. "No matter what world we're in," she stated with a smile sniffing back tears.

"That's right." Tai cupped her chin and kissed her. "No matter what world we're in, or whatever happens, I promise I'll always find you because we belong together."

They shared a silent hug as the last remaining light from the setting sun dipped below the horizon. The sound of someone clearing their throat caused them to look at the digiport.

"Excuse me," Cody blushed as he communicated from the digiport. "I don't mean to interrupt, but it'd probably be safer to continue the conversation here since it's night time already."

"Uh, right. Thanks," Tai sheepishly said.

Cody opened the digiport on his end. As Tai raised his digivice to go home, Sora stopped his arm.

"One more thing: After Danny's funeral, I'd rather go to a hot spring instead of the country side." She held out her pinky waiting to see if he'd agree. "Deal?"

Tai closed his good eye imagining the water soothing his muscles. He grinned, regardless of the sadness and weariness once more showing in his eyes, and locked his pinky with hers. "Deal."


End file.
